


Fall Quarter — Steve

by daphnomancy



Series: The Mighty Fighting Elephant Seals of UC Monterey [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 41,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2455673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnomancy/pseuds/daphnomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is a Pre-Med Residential Advisor of Guass House, a residential hall at UC Monterey. Along with the stress of school and academic clubs, the shenanigans of the other students on his floor, the threat of asbestos poisoning, and budget cuts affecting his major, Steve keeps turning into a fumbling idiot around Thor, the handsome transfer student who lives across the hall from him. With all these obstacles, graduating early is looking less and less likely for poor Steve, as he tries to make his way through the year with his sanity intact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Room 301

**Author's Note:**

> This story is told from Steve's point of view and there is a concurrent story told from Thor's POV right [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2519330/). And you can find them both within "The Mighty Fighting Elephant Seals of UC Monterey." The chapters do not exactly match up (ie: chapter 3 of Thor's POV just briefly mentions something that happened in chapter 3 of Steve's), but they follow the same general timeline. There will also be three sets of stories for the whole series (one for each POV for each school quarter, ending with Spring quarter). Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this fic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is just settling down into his room when he realizes he's made a huge mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story corresponds with "Fall Quarter — Thor" (which is Part 2 of this series). They follow the same-ish timeline, but weave in and out of each other with their own little subplots.

Steve Rogers sat at the desk in his single room at his computer, already taking notes. Classes had not started yet at UC Monterey, but the young man was not leaving anything up to chance. Really he had not been leaving anything up to chance since he was a freshman. He had no money, and the more time he spent in school the more he and his mother would be in debt, and there was no way he would let that happen. Now he was a junior with senior standing, having spent the last three years taking two, three and even four extra classes each quarter, in order to graduate early and start medical school. He was a member of Sigma Mu, the premed fraternity, as well as the BioChem Study Club, the baseball team, and the student newspaper, City in the Woods Press, where he drew comics. On top of all that this year he was trying his hand at being an Residential Advisor, because then he would not have to pay for housing or a food plan. 

He always tried hard, he always wanted to help, he always wanted to be as good as he could be. He always followed the rules. He always did the right thing.

He had been assigned the second and third floors of Guass House, one of nine residential dorm buildings on Science Hill at UC Monterey. He had eight upperclassmen, and a handful of freshman, who would be arriving for first-year orientation soon. He had mere minutes to cram in some reading before parents would be walking the halls with their kids, and students would be lugging boxes up the stairs and fighting over beds and awkwardly meeting new roommates. He checked all the rooms under his purview beforehand to make sure all the furniture was there, but he knew that someone would be knocking on his door because there was no desk chair, or no mattress.

There was a knock on his door, which was propped open to the hall. No! Too soon! There can’t be freshman already! He turned around and was greeted by the sight of a very tall, very broad, very blond man standing in his doorway with one bag. Too big to be a freshman. 

“I think you’re in my room,” said the intruder.

Steve stared at the man. It was 9:00 in the morning. The sun shone brightly from the window opposite the tall, broad, blond man and illuminated his tall, broad, blondness. Steve had been in this room for the whole weekend, moving in and preparing and settling into the dorm. He had also been psyching himself up to have students arrive at 10, and to not know where their rooms were; never in his wildest preparations had he expected early students telling him _he_ was in the wrong place. He had also been expecting freshman. Gross, misshapen, awkward freshman. What in god’s name was this? This godlike monstrosity?

“I’m pretty sure this is my room,” the man tried again, shaking Steve from his stupor. 

“No, no. I’m the RA here. This is my room.”

“I thought the room with the RA plaque would be your room then?”

“This is the room with the—“

Steve realized that he did not know whether or not his door had the RA plaque on it. He stepped through the very small dorm room and out into the hall with the tall, broad, blond man. There was his room number, 301, and underneath—

“There’s no plaque.”

“No. There’s one on that door though.” The tall, broad, blond man pointed across the narrow hallway at the door to 302, where, in neat bronze letters were the words “Residential Advisor.”

“Oh my god.” He could feel the blood rushing from his face. In any other world this would not be a horrible situation, but the housing coordinator for his section of the campus, his boss, was a horrifying man. While other areas around the school were pretty lax about the student residential advisors, Steve had been stuck with Mr. Fury, a horror story amongst RAs. The last thing Mr. Fury said to them as they wrapped up their final orientation-prep meeting was to make sure their rooms were ready before the students came.

“I want it to be a fun, welcoming place for the freshman,” he said, sounding neither fun nor welcoming, as he leaned over the desk looking at Steve and the other RAs. “I will inspect everything before the first wave of students come to make sure it looks… _nice_.”

Steve’s room was nice, in fact it was perfect. Except it wasn’t his room. He shoved past the tall, broad, blond man to grab his key from his desk, and shoved past the tall, broad, blond man again to go to room 302. His key was for 301, there’s no way it would fit into the keyhole for 302.

With a fate-sealing click, the key unlocked the door, which creaked ominously as it opened slowly, revealing a dark, un-moved-into room. It did not look fun. It did not look welcoming. It did not look nice.

_You have got to be kidding me._

Steve swore. Loudly. The tall, broad, blond man who stood next to him peaking into 302 jumped. Then Steve swore again, a long, steady stream of words he would not say in front of his mother. He paced back and forth between the room he lived in and the room that was actually his, swearing all the while. The tall, broad, blond man finally grabbed him by the shoulder.

“It’s alright. I don’t care. We’ll just move the stuff. We’ve got all year.”

“It’s not that!” Steve tried to explain the situation with Mr. Fury but was only barely coherent. The tall, broad, blond man listened patiently, nodding sympathetically.

“Well, RA, I will help you get this room fixed up.”

“You will?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

The two men rushed back and forth between the two rooms, caring bags of laundry, boxes of books, and opting to just trade the mattresses, rather than deal switching the sheets, because there was no way that Steve could get the corners _just right_ in time. The tall, broad, blond man was even able to deftly switch the posters Steve had put up, mirroring their spots from the old room on his new walls, while Steve tried to get his clothes back into his dresser the way they were before.

At 9:54am, they had finished, Steve sitting in his new desk chair, and the tall, broad, blond man flopping down onto Steve’s little, blue beanbag chair, making it look even smaller than it really was.

Steve saw a flash of red as Nat, the RA for the basement and first floor darted by coming up from the main stairs.

“Fury’s coming!” she called out. Then she peeped back in again, giving the two men a quizzical look before heading back down the hallway, and down the back stairs. Steve was about to stand up and follow her when Mr. Fury stood in the door. He looked around at Steve’s room, while Steve and the tall, broad, blond man sat quietly, waiting under his stern gaze.

“Not too bad, Rogers,” Mr Fury said at last. Steve felt a small, relieved sigh escape his chest. “How are you settling in, Odinson? Find your room okay?”

“Oh yeah. Just getting to know my RA,” the tall, broad, blond man said amicably. Steve found himself staring once again. How did he know Mr. Fury? What was going on? Was this a test? A conspiracy?

“Thor here was supposed to live in the transfer student hall, Rogers. They ran out of room, so he’s getting the single across from you.”

“Oh…” the explanation was sound. “That’s good.”

Suddenly, a low murmur came from the main staircase, growing ever louder. Mr. Fury quickly turned from Steve’s door and towards the back stairs, as the din of voices came closer and closer, leaving Steve to fend for himself against the ravenous hoards.

“That’s them,” Steve said. The tall, broad, blond man, Thor, stood up with Steve, and they headed towards the hall. “Thanks for helping me out. Sorry I took your room.”

“It’s no problem, man, really.” Thor stuck out a hand, and Steve reached out and shook it, the warmth of it sending an unexpected buzz up his arm. Thor’s wide smile was blinding. Everything around the man was light and warmth. He was like a human supernova with a dumb name.

Then the moment was gone, Thor was headed into Steve’s old room, giving Steve a quick thumbs up before disappearing behind the door with his one bag. It clicked closed and Steve felt oddly bereft staring at his old door. It was a nice room. The view was into the forest instead of onto the mini quad for Science Hill, which was not a bad view either. 

“Oh look at this room! It’s so cute!” a mother cried out from down the hall. Steve took a deep breath, gave one last, lingering look to the textbook he was supposed to be studying from and walked onto the move-in day battlefield.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Reading is for wimps)


	2. Door Swings Both Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve needs to watch where he's going.

The next few days were a bit of a blur. Event, after event, after event. Steve was required to be at the massive freshman orientation, the Science Hill orientation and tour, the Guass House orientation with rules about the shared bathrooms, the mini kitchen and the lounge. Then there was the start of year club fair, followed by several shifts of handing out fliers in front of the bookstore for the pre-med fraternity, the baseball team and the newspaper, a special meeting for all pre-med majors who were up for graduation during the school year and another meeting for BioChem majors which he did not really have to go to, but since he was minoring in BioChem, felt he ought to go to anyway. He also had followup sessions with the other RAs and Mr. Fury, as well as a meeting with one of the upperclassman who lived on his floor who was legally deaf, going over the intricacies of his hearing loss and what he needed in terms of accommodation. Steve wanted to be alert for that one, and tried his best to absorb as much of the information as he could, but he was so exhausted that by the end of the day as he went to sleep that night he realized he could not even remember the guy’s name. He looked through his roster and none of the names listed sounded familiar, so he had so schedule in time to lurk by the doors, reading off the name tags he put over the frames to find out who he really was. He had yet to see Thor again that week.

His freshman were nice, a quiet bunch. Steve was grateful that at least all they were more dungeons and dragons type kids, rather than crazy binge drinkers. The upperclassmen on his floor were another issue. As they slowly trickled in over the next week, Steve found out that hey were stubborn as mules, and all of them seemed weirdly smarter than Steve. Not that Steve was dumb, but usually at UC Monterey, the kids who still lived on campus were not the brightest bulbs in the box. Steve had been stuck with a handful of highly intelligent super students who were apt to argue, and loved to bend the rules but never quite break them.

Steve was the only one who was broken and classes had not even begun. He was hoping things would start settling down as people got into the routine of going to their classes.

~•~

It was finally Monday. At 9:15 in the morning Steve headed down Cardiac Hill to Hahn Hall, the lecture hall for his first class, Advanced Human Physiology, finishing his bagel with cream cheese from the dining hall as he walked. The weather was still warm from the summer, and the steep hill down was not nearly as treacherous as it could be in the rainy season. Even this early in the morning, the sun warmed the back of his neck and top of his blonde head as he precariously made his way down the hill one hand on the railing, one hand holding his bagel, stopping only to let those hiking upwards go by him; they had the right of way on this monster of of a hill. One was a lovely girl, and he tried to respectfully check her out, without seeming rude. When he reached the bottom, he looked up and wished he had done a little more cardio in the summer, because climbing back up that hill was going to be a real bitch.

He made his way into the lecture hall, and sat down near the front, next to the lefty desk at the edge of the center aisle. He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to wish away last week’s chaos before pulling out his laptop and setting up to take notes.

“Is that the Macbook Air? How do you like it?” said a calm voice above him. Steve looked and recognized one of his upperclassmen from Guass. He had dark, curly hair, and wore a loose button up shirt and khaki pants, toes sticking out from a pair of flip-flops. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, with one of the legs held together by scotch tape. In his hand was one of the disposable cups from the cafe nearby with the string of a tea-bag hanging out from it, flapping in the breeze of the lecture hall's AC system. Steve could not remember his name. Benny? Brian? Bernard?

“It’s Bruce. I live a few doors down from you.”

“Right, of course.” Steve shook Bruce’s hand, as Bruce set his stuff down at the desk. He never used to be this bad with names. Not before he started at UCM anyway. “Careful, that’s the lefty desk, the table comes out the other side.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m a lefty.” Bruce smiled serenely and settled into the desk.

“I just figured you’re new. I kind of know all the pre-med and bio faces around here.”

“I’m not new actually, I’m old.”

“How do you mean?”

“And I’m not pre-med either. I’m an MCD major.” 

“I thought those guys only had like four people?”

“I’m number five. Well, I’m closer to number one or two,” Bruce looked at Steve, gauging his confusion. “I’m a Super-Senior. Fifth year. I had to take a little time off…”

Bruce did not look like he wanted to talk about it. Steve was about toask when he suddenly remembered why Bruce had left for six months before graduation. A breakdown. An angry, violent breakdown. It was a note in his RA roster. How could he have forgotten?

“Well, glad you’re back now. That’s the only thing I care about.” 

“Yeah, it’s good to be here.”

“It’s nice to have another biology person on the floor too. In the same class even. Although the Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology department? That’s pretty intense.”

“It’s some fun stuff. I like the research.”

“Good morning class,” The professor had walked in, settling his bag on the table in the front. The TA’s scrambled around him setting up his laptop for the presentation. The lights dimmed, Bruce and Steve sat illuminated by their computer screens, looking up at the projector screen.

“It’s good to meet you,” Steve whispered over to Bruce as the lecture began.

“Likewise. Can always use a study-buddy.”

They were quiet for the rest of class, and Steve was very grateful. He tried taking classes with friends from the baseball team and newspaper, but they loved to chat. Bruce was different. He was engrossed in the lecture, the same as Steve. Their fingers typed together quickly, clicking in sync in the dark of the lecture hall.

The hour and a half finished and the lights flicked back on.

“I’ve got another class to go to, but do you maybe want to meet up later and go over the lecture?”

Steve thought his heart would burst with joy. He quickly agreed, trying his hardest not to hug the smaller man, before packing up his stuff. Bruce left out of a different exit, while Steve hoisted his backpack and headed back the way he came towards Guass. He was pushed the door open and hit something solid and big.

“Oh jeez, I’m sorry!” He went around the door and saw a stunned Thor standing there, rubbing his shoulder, sunlight beaming down through the trees, illuminating his skin. His blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail, which for some reason made him seem even taller, broader and blonder than he did when Steve first met him a week ago.

“It’s quite alright,” Thor replied, though the pained look on his face made Steve think it really wasn’t alright. Though when he finally saw Steve, he gave a small smile. “Steve! RA! Hey man.”

“Hey, Thor. What are you doing here?”

“I have class here. 11:10. This is Hahn Hall right?”

“Yeah. You’re right where you belong.”

Steve stepped to the side to get out of Thor’s way, but Thor stepped that way too. They danced back and forth for a minute, while Steve felt the blush riding his up his neck until they finally figured out how to get around each other. It was fumbly and awkward, and Steve was sure that Thor thought he was an idiot. 

“Well, later man.” Thor smiled and gave Steve a thumbs up, and walked through the door, messenger back flashing as he turned the corner into the lecture hall.

Steve stood there a moment, slightly flabbergasted, but he could not quite put his finger on the reason.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta read? What's that?)


	3. Hermit Crabs, and Thor Out of His Shell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has an argument with Pepper Potts. Then finds that his key that works on both his and Thor's room is a hazardous liability.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am definitely getting a lot of inspiration from this list (http://whitmerule.tumblr.com/post/99582486690/inthebackoftheimpala-cliffnotesofanerd), so expect to see more of it in the future!

“No, Pepper. I’m not singling you out. The rules clearly state that any aquarium you have cannot be bigger than 10 gallons, and the only pets you can have are fish.”

Steve stood in front of the thin, ginger woman trying to remain calm. With her heels on she could meet him at eye level, and it was safe to say that Steve was slightly intimidated by the Legal Studies major in front of him. It was the first room check of the year, and Steve had been expecting the trouble to come from Tony, Clint and Bruce’s room, but instead was meeting resistance from the one girls room on the floor. Peggy Carter and Virginia “Call me Pepper” Potts were using Christmas lights as extension cords, had nailed up hooks for framed pictures, had candles set up on the window sill, had tapestries hanging along the ceiling which covered the fire alarm, and had clearly been smoking cigarettes. The worst problem, however, was the hermit crabs. Wally and Martha's little phalanges and antennae wiggled rudely at Steve. He fought the urge to stick his tongue out at the blasted creatures.

“So what’s the problem? Is it the tank size or is it Wally and and Martha?”

“It’s both!”

“Do not take that tone with me, Steve. I do not care that you’re the RA. It’s a stupid rule, and I won’t follow it. Wally and Martha get to stay.”

“No, they get to leave. Not only is it your ass on the line if Mr. Fury comes through and sees them, but it is _my_ ass on the line if Mr. Fury comes through and sees them.”

“How dare you talk about my ass!”

Peggy snorted from her seat on her raised bed, not looking up from her textbook, (The Norton Anthology of British Literature, volume A; The Middle Ages, Steve read on the spine). He looked at her for help, but she met his eyes, gave him a ‘you must be joking’ look, and resumed reading.

He tried to calm down. “Listen, I’m not talking about your ass, I’m just not able to leave the room like this. The number of rule violations is just too much, and the hermit crabs are the icing on the cake.”

“Fine, write up everything we need to fix and it’ll get done, but the hermit crabs stay. They’re pets and they’re not hurting anyone. I’ll fight this with Fury if I have to.”

“I don’t doubt it. Just get rid of them.”

“No!” Steve was writing up the ticket with the code violations and huffed out a deep sigh ignoring Pepper. He looked around the room to see if he missed anything, spotting a burning incense stick on Peggy’s night stand, and a bowl from the dining hall on a dresser and adding them to the list. He had though that maybe Pepper was acquiescing when suddenly she spoke in a clear loud voice,

“You can’t make me get rid of them, they’re service animals!”

Steve stopped writing. Exasperated he looked at Pepper’s deadly serious face and could feel his jaw hanging open at her audacity. He looked around the room, and saw Clint, Tony and Bruce peaking in from the hall, looking just as shocked, before they jumped back hiding from Steve’s wrath.

He flipped the notepad closed, took a deep breath, and tucked his pencil into the wire binding.

“Fine,” he said at last. “Give me proof that they’re service animals, and put them in a smaller tank.” He opened the pad again, found the page he needed and ripped out the ticket. “Take care of these other issues.”

“Thank you,” Pepper said curtly.

“Can you promise me that this is the last time you’re going to pull this kind of crap?”

“Nope.”

He took another deep breath. “Have a good day.” Steve, regretting ever deciding to become an RA, handed her the ticket, and walked out of the room.

“I think you broke him,” he heard Peggy say as he trudged down the hall.

Peggy was probably right, he thought as he closed the door to the girls’ room behind him. The cute flower name-tags they had made for their doorframe beguiled the malicious workings within. Steve walked to the room at the end of the hall and mindlessly unlocked the door, coming face to face with a tall, broad, blond, shirtless man.

“Hey Steve, could’ve knocked couldn’t ya? Come in a minute sooner and you would have seen a whole lot of wang, dude.”

Thor stood by his dresser, clearly changing clothes, dark jeans hanging loosely on his hips, black and grey briefs just barely peeking out, tight against his sculpted lower abdomen. The sun was shining through the window; warm light defused through the trees making the bare skin of his torso glow. Steve was shocked into a stupor.

“Steve? Alright there, man?” Thor asked, draping his shirt over the door of the open dresser, taking a step towards the RA.

“This isn’t my room anymore,” Steve replied quietly.

“No. It isn’t.”

“I should go.”

“If you want. It was nice seeing you though.” Thor smiled, bemused. 

Steve hobbled out of the room and across the hall. But he didn’t have his keys. He turned around just in time to run into Thor’s bare chest. Thor had followed him out holding his keys, grinning, and was now slowly peeling Steve off his body, gently handing him his keys, with the right one already out from the rest to help poor Steve get into his room. Steve fumbled with the keys while Thor meandered back towards his room, glancing at Steve to make sure he made it back into his room. Steve looked over at Thor and they locked eyes for a moment before his door finally clicked open and Steve leaned precariously into his room. Thor gave him a thumbs up before disappearing back into 301.

Steve closed his door behind him and leaned back against the wood, sliding down to the floor, legs sprawling out from underneath him. He leaned his head back against the door with a small thump and let out a soft groan. The image of Thor’s bare torso was burned onto his retinas; beautiful, angry, well-proportioned nipples glaring at him because of his stupid, bumbling intrusion. 

This was going to be such a long year.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read? Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?)


	4. Poetry, Language and Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve hates his Poetry and Language class, and it has not even started yet. Professor Coulson is chatty and loves Linguistics, and there are too many bare feet for Steve to deal with. Plus, a surprise on the syllabus leaves Steve reeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Professor Coulson/Phil is based off of a few of my old professors. He may be chatty, but he is definitely a product of love.  
> • I actually have no problem with Linguistics. It's one of the coolest majors.  
> • I do however hate general education requirements as much as Steve does.  
> • Steve will eventually grow out of this rule-abiding/stick up the butt mentality. He is going to grow. It is going to be okay. He will find his niceness again, don't worry.

Steve sat in a classroom he had never been in, in a section of campus he almost never went to, taking a class he would not be caught dead in if he were not required to take it to graduate. A class that had not even begun, (Steve in his usual fashion was fifteen minutes early), but that he already decided he hated.

_Poetry and Language._

Steve even hated the name of the class. It was a Linguistics class (he could not even say that with sneering a little bit; the soft sciences left him feeling icky) that fulfilled the ‘Textual Analysis and Interpretation’ general education requirement. A class that ‘has as its primary methodology the interpretation or analysis of texts.’ Steve was convinced that he rolled his eyes so hard when he read that that he pulled a muscle in his face. This gen-ed requirement was just one step up from the general education requirement ‘Interpreting Arts and Media’ he had to take next quarter. He had had multiple sessions with his academic advisor about getting out of the general education requirements, but to no avail.

He was on the west side of campus, usually reserved for the arts and humanities classes, because it was close to the offices for those professors, and he felt like a lost puppy amidst an unrelenting sea of forced culture.There were buildings he did not even know existed, with people he was not sure he wanted to be seen with. Artsy people. People who looked like they wanted to tell you about your aura, and your chakras. People who acted like they knew what chakras were. People without shoes. This is what bothered Steve most of all. They were in the middle of the darned forest! In the winter he had to wear hiking boots if he knew he would be heading through one of the many wooded paths between buildings, and here were kids walking around barefoot. Going into class barefoot!

Talking about their feelings _barefoot!_

Steve did not understand. Steve did not want to be here. Steve was the only one with a computer out ready to type up notes. Steve was utterly alone. There was a man sitting at the base of one of the tall redwood trees as Steve walked into the small classroom who actually had the audacity to be playing a guitar and singing. The whole planet was falling to pieces around him.

The professor walked into the class, beaming at the students in the class, and shaking Steve from having to think about feet and guitars. The professor was a short, stubby man with a bit of a paunchy belly, and a receding hairline. He wore a strange, tunic-y shirt over some loose kaki pants, and a pair of Birkenstock sandals. He sounded simultaneously ecstatic and unfazed. His voice was calming, even though he clearly loved to talk.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome! What a great new year this is turning out to be huh? Loving the weather! September in Monterey, can’t beat it! How are you all doing? What’s shaking, what’s cracking, what’s cooking? Deedee! How was Morocco? I thought you weren’t due back until January! Marco, have you started the Latin 1 class yet? I met the grad student teaching! He seems like a real kick in the pants! Gosh, okay, let’s take a look at this roster. Some new names. Some eh _interesting_ majors out there. We’ve got someone from the computer sciences major, welcome, and ooh! A Premed major with a Biochemistry minor. Don’t see too many of your kind around, Rogers, Steven?” he looked around the room, and Steve waved his hand. “This is exciting! Exciting stuff!

“Okay, Poetry and Language! For those of you who don’t know I’m Phil Coulson, I’m one of the Linguistics Professors here at UCM. Feel free to call me Phil—“ Steve felt his eyes rolling and had to physically restrain himself from snorting “—What a ride these ten weeks are going to be. We’ve got a whole mess of stuff to look at. Some Chaucer, some Donne, some Hughes, because, of course Hughs, am I right? So, right now my TA, Marnie! Marnie the Magnificent! is passing around the syllabi, each of you just grab one and keep it until we come up with a new, revised one with the actual finalized dates. There’s some fudging we had to do to get this out on time. And there’s also a list going around with a sign-up sheet where you can write any languages you have. I want to look at some stuff obviously not in English and if we’ve got some overlap we can skip the translation. But I’ve got some good translations to look at too, because those are a whole thing in themselves, aren’t they?”

 _Languages?_ Steve was lost already. Professor Coulson, _Phil_ , kept talking about poetry and his summer vacation and pretty much anything under the sun, and Steve was sure that this is exactly what drowning in the Atlantic must feel like. The sheet made it’s way around to him, and he saw that each of the students before had written their names, as well as the languages (oftentimes multiple) that they spoke in the provided column. Steve did not speak a second language. He took Spanish in high school for the required two years and then quickly dropped it, opting instead to take another science class. Now there were students listing languages that he had never heard of.

“What’s Farsi?” he asked aloud, not realizing the words had left his mouth until they were out in the open, already realizing the answer. He knew what Farsi was, just another language. But he inadvertently silenced Professor Coulson — no, Phil — for a brief moment until the small man lit up and spoke again.

“Farsi? Farsi is a beautiful language, spoken predominately in Iran, where they also make some of the most delicious deserts you can imagine. Really interesting use of fruit. I went there, gosh over ten years ago now, for a joint study with Columbia’s Linguistics program; good group there. We were both looking at the Persian language and all the variants, and me and my people were studying the various dialects surrounding it, while the Columbia people were working on the socio-economic issues surrounding the speakers in both Iran and other parts of the world. Wonderful time! But yes, Farsi is an interesting, difficult language, but it’s okay that you didn’t know that. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay! That’s why we do what we do—“

 _It’s okay_? Steve sat as Phil spoke over him and to all the other students. If he had asked something that stupid in one of his Biochem classes, he’d be reamed alive by the professor. Instead, it was _okay._ Steve could not wrap his head around the concept. He looked at the page, realizing he was clearly lacking where these students were not, sighed, signed his name, adding no additional language and passed it on to the girl sitting behind him.“Oh, before I forget! Look at the bottom of your syllabi, there is a list of people whose office hours you need to know if you have any questions. Now, Marnie and I would be glad to help, but we’re busy busy busy. I’m teaching Semantics 1, and let me tell you, I thought we’d be in Hahn hall, with a good 200-250 students. They stuck us in the biggo Media Lecture Hall by the library where there’s no cell service. That’s like a 400 seat hall! Wowzers, right? But I’ve been scrambling to grab some more TA’s for that, and I met the most wonderful transfer student who is willing to help with this stuff. Great guy, tall as hell, you can’t miss that kid in a crowd. Gosh! I can’t remember his name, check the bottom of the syllabus, I don’t have a copy on me—“

Steve looked at the bottom of his paper, and there, listed alongside the TA and Professor was the name,

**_Thor Odinson,_ ** _Office Hours: 11:00-1:00, Wednesdays, 2:00-3:00 Thursdays. Stevenson Bldg, Linguistics Office, rm 112._

_You have got to be kidding me._ Steve was about to throw up his hands in disgust when Phil sat down on the table in front of the class and said

“Do you guys mind if I take off my Birkenstocks? Sometimes you just gotta barefoot-it and on a day like today, can you blame me?”

Steve died a little inside.


	5. The Editor in Chief and Lead Reporter of Steve's Cold, Dead Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally meet Bucky and Sam during the first meeting of the City in the Woods Press student newspaper. They reveal some unsettling news about the current state of the school and budget cuts that Steve was completely unaware of. They're also the coolest guys Steve knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • The stuff about budget cuts is laying the groundwork for future conflict in the story. It is another aspect I'm pulling from my real-life experience at school, where majors were just starting to cut as I was graduating. It's a crummy situation no doubt, and will be playing a major role in the story later on.  
> • Bucky and Sam as cool journalism guys was a complete accident, but I love it.  
> • Bucky swears a lot. If I was truly being honest about college life, these kids would be dropping f-bombs every sentence. But for the sake of fanfic, I've held back. Bucky is my release. Bucky is the dirty mouthed sailor that every college student secretly is.

It was Thursday evening, almost Friday, almost the weekend, as Steve walked into the the City in the Woods Press office for the first meeting of the year. Steve’s shoulders were tight with stress and his legs ached from climbing Cardiac Hill four times in an hour. Three of his freshman had locked themselves out of the building and all called him the moment he got down the hill. Then he realized he left his power cord in his room, and had to trudge back up once more to get it, since he knew he was not going to make it the whole day without it. It was hours ago, but he was pretty sure he was still winded from the excursions.

It was still the first week, and he was already behind on his readings. Not his _real_ readings, but his Poetry and Language class readings. He was fairly certain it was not even written in English.

If he was doing things right he’d be going to Thor during his office hours, or even Professor Coulson, but he could not work up the courage, despite neither Thor nor Phil being as frightening as some of his Biochem professors. Thor’s angry nipples flashed in his head every time he thought about seeing him too, which was awful. But he should be doing something about the Poetry and Language class. Dropping was no longer an option, as there were no other classes that fit with his other classes and fulfilled the right gen-ed requirement. He thought about risking his perfectly thought out schedule and taking one of the gen-ed classes that he was planning on for the next two quarters, but it was too big a change to wrap his head around, and he figured he just had to grin and bear it.

The readings made no sense, and he had to interpret them in front of the professor, and worst, on write-ups each week. There were also not one but two essays, each fifteen pages long. Which wasn’t an impossible feat, but they each had to focus on a single poem. One poem over the course of fifteen pages? There was not enough to write about! He was also not allowed to use charts (he asked). It was a nightmare.

“Woah there, dude. You keep thinking so hard you’re going to hurt yourself.” A voice behind him and a hand on his shoulder jolted him out of his internal grousing . 

Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes came up behind him, sitting down in the rolling chairs next to him. Steve had not been so happy to see anyone than he was these two. Both of them were Journalism majors, who Steve lived with last year off-campus. He wanted to be just like them. They were laid back, but passionate; cool but responsible; adventurous but realistic. Steve did not have time to be these things, he was too busy studying.

“You ready to draw some mad comics, man?” Sam asked. “I got lots of ideas, and we’re going to need you more than ever.”

“Maybe. This is a rough year for me though.”

“The last two years have been rough for you. I figured you’d be used to it by now.” Bucky said.

“I guess,” Steve replied, shrugging. “What do you mean you’ve got ideas?”

“It’s not official yet,” Sam said. He leaned in close to Steve and Bucky, lowering his voice. “I’m going to be Editor in Chief.”

“That’s great. Congratulations!”

“And it’s going to look sick on my résumé for Journalism school. Professor Hill said if I do well this quarter, the position is mine for both this year _and_ next year.”

’“And of course, yours truly is managing editor under goob-face here. And lead reporter! I’m on top of this budget cut stuff like a fly on shit, man.”

“Is it getting that bad?”

“It’s not looking good. There’s rumors they might be cutting a fuck-ton of departments _by the end of this quarter_.”

“Jeez. Any idea which ones?”

“Frankly, it’s all fair game I’ve heard. Even possibly consolidating the hard sciences. Anything that’s not bringing in enough fucking students or money, or just has professors that the Provost doesn’t like.” Steve made a face. “Yeah, it’s shit times right now.”

“But thank god you’re here to report it,” said Steve with a smirk.

“Damn right. This is going to be a massive investigative piece of news, I tell you right now, Rogers. And I don’t want to be a dick, but the worse it gets, the more I can write, the more quality stuff I have for my Journalism school app.”

“So it’s win-win. Unless—“

“No, no. No unlesses.”

“Unless they cut the Journalism major.”

The three of them grew quiet. Looking at Sam and Bucky's face, Steve realized he stumbled on a very real possibility. Steve did not know things were getting this bad in the school, and he had no idea that Sam and Bucky were this invested in the paper. He knew they were a big part of it, but Editor in Chief, Lead Reporter? They were actually doing something. He wanted to be invested in something as much as they were. He wished he knew about the budget cuts beforehand like they did. They just dove in. He was left studying his ass off and worrying about Poetry and Language when there were bigger things on the table.

The conversation sat heavily on him as Professor Hill walked in to start off the first meeting of the year. Steve only half-listened, cheering when they announced Sam's new role and clapping him on the back when he sat back down next to Steve, but not fully committed. He was absorbed once again in his thoughts. It was like walking through a hail storm, but instead of balls of ice, the sky was pummeling him with everything he was doing wrong and the multitudes of crap on his plate. Forgetting names, not studying enough, meeting with Fury, Pepper’s hermit crabs, the poetry class (he still didn’t have the textbook!), his socially awkward freshman, the impending room check for Tony, Clint and Bruce, drawing comics for the paper when there was nothing funny to draw. The list went on and on.

Worst of all, all of his thoughts kept going back to the image of Thor without his shirt on, smiling at Steve in his sun-speckled room. It was the only good thing he could think about, and it was freaking terrible. He had seen guys without shirts on before, but Thor’s chest would not leave him alone. Thor’s warm, dry skin when they shook hands that first day two weeks ago. His smile.

_It’s like Bucky and Sam_ , he thought to himself. It’s just another cool guy who I want to be like. He seems so relaxed and comfortable. That’s what’s going on. It’s gotta be.

“Hey,” whispered Bucky. “You’re seriously going to pop a blood vessel if you don’t calm down, bro. There’s a good swell coming in over the weekend. You down to catch some waves on Saturday? Dawn patrol?”

Steve nodded. If a cold shower couldn’t get the parade of Thor’s nipples out of his head, then the entirety of the freezing, northern Californian ocean might be his only hope.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta read? Kinky. ;) )


	6. The Room That Should Not Be A Dorm (event number 1 of many).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get intense after Steve's first meeting with Tony and his stupid facial hair, and Steve accidentally takes out his frustration on tall, broad, blond Thor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Steve's breaking point (first of many, perhaps?) is something I did not think we'd be meeting this soon, but that is how the fic worked out. Tony isn't really this much of a jerk. Like Steve, I think there are some high tensions because of the begining of the school year.

Since he moved in, Steve felt that the layout of Gauss House was a little peculiar. It was an L-shape. It had stairs going up the middle and at the two ends. There was a bathroom along the inside junction of the L on each floor. On the outside junction there was a different room on each floor. The basement floor had the laundry room, the first floor a lounge, the second floor a rarely used kitchen. The third floor had originally been another lounge, but the school decided to convert it into another room. A triple. Room number 305: The room should not be a dorm room. The feng shui was off. It was just asking for trouble. As such, Steve had put off doing a room check there, just because he was not sure of what he would find.

Inside the triple lived Clint Barton, his one deaf student, Bruce Banner, who seemed like a beacon of sanity, and Tony Stark, who was the opposite. Tony Stark was insane. It made sense that he lived in the triple.Steve just had to take a look at his facial hair to know that Tony Stark was officially not right in the head. On the roster he was listed as having a triple major; Physics, Engineering and Philosophy. There were a few notes from previous RAs about Tony, and they all started with “Just let him do whatever he fucking wants.” Then they went on to list dozens of weird, horrifying pranks that Tony had pulled as a freshman and sophomore. It was a wonder that he had not been kicked out of the school yet. 

When Steve walked into the building Friday afternoon afternoon after a meeting with his Biochem Lab TA, even from the bottom floor, he could hear the music wafting down the stairs. No, not wafting, hurling itself down the stairs. The hard rock n’ roll was loud enough that as Steve walked up the stairs, he could feel it rattling his teeth. When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw a frightened group of freshmen, and Pepper, Peggy, some of the other upperclassmen, Nat, and Thor; tall, broad, blond Thor, standing at the junction of the L, waiting for him. Steve’s heart gave a little flip.

_Just a little RA performance anxiety._

“What’s going on?” he asked Nat, trying to raise his voice above the music.

“Don’t know. I don’t have the keys for this floor.”

Steve took a deep breath and pounded on the door. There was no answer. He tried again. The three loud booms were washed out by the music.

“Tony, it’s Steve. I’m coming in there. Open up!” It was futile to try and yell over the music, but the rules stated he had to announce his intention to enter. He pulled out his ring of keys from his backpack and found the one for 305, unlocking the door and pushing it open. Before he could get a good look, a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room, slamming it behind him. Steve stumbled in, falling to the ground. He looked around at what used to be a dorm room, and was now a laboratory with inconsequential furniture.

Somehow they managed to stack the three beds one on top of the other, making a three layered, extremely against the rules, bunk bed that would not have fit if the room did not have the high vaulted ceilings of the top floor. They had smashed the three dressers next to each other in the corner and had built a platform using them as the base. It was on this platform that Clint had apparently set up his desk and chair, and he was sitting there now, studying peacefully. He looked like he was bobbing his head to the music, but was not on the beat at all. He did not seem to notice that Steve was even there. Along one wall there was a row of desks, which were covered in beakers and bottles. On the far end of the desks there was a mini fridge that had a sign taped to it saying “Do not move petri dishes!” Next to it on the wall was a grocery list pad with a few items written down on it, with a cute flower border. On the other end of the desks in the corner, was a small shrine with candles, and a tiny square rug. In the middle of the room, there was what could only be described as long, metal, tube-like ‘contraption’ that stretched out across the whole room, and was sticking out the window.

Bruce helped him up. He was the one who had pulled Steve in originally, looking a mix between embarrassed at the situation and terrified that Steve was here. Steve looked at him and saw that he was wearing ear muffs. He was about to ask Bruce to turn off the music when he saw Tony, wearing a helmet, adjusting a harness around his waist, and looping a rope that hung a hook in the ceiling through a carabiner on his front. He then stepped up on a chair, and onto the windowsill. He leaned back into the harness, testing the weight and calmly took a step out the window.

Steve rushed to the window and grabbed Tony just in time, hands hooking into his harness. He pulled the smaller man back into the room where they landed with a thud, getting tangled up in Tony’s ropes in the process.

Bruce rushed over to one of the computers and turned off the music. Steve lay back on the ground for a moment, ears throbbing from the sudden silence.

“What the hell was that for?” Tony waffled around before finally untangling himself and stood up angrily, glaring down at Steve.

“You’re kidding me, right?" Steve screamed back as he stood up himself. "What in god’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“I needed to belay out the window so I can get to the end of my particle ac—“

“Stop, I don’t care about anything past ‘belaying out the damned window.’ This is a school. This is a dorm. What made you think that that was an appropriate thing to do? What made you think any of what you’ve done to this room was appropriate?! What were you even thinking? Were you even thinking?! You could have died!”

“Hey jackass, I was perfectly safe until you got tangled up in my ropes and grabbed me down.”

“You’re certifiable. I can get you kicked out for this kind of crap. All of this crap. You and Bruce and Clint are breaking literally every rule in the book!”

“Oh relax. Pull that stick out of your ass!”

Tony kept yelling at him about rope safety, and invasion of privacy and Steve pointed out the horrible situation with the beds and the Clint’s desk on the dresser, and Bruce’s multiple science experiments. They were screaming. Steve had never spoken to anyone in his life the way he was speaking to Tony. If Steve had to look back on the experience, he would say that that was the moment when things actually started the horrible process of falling apart. It was Friday of the first week. Tony was yelling at him for saving his life. Things were crashing down around, and he had to let it out somewhere, and it might as well be Tony. The words ‘ _pull that stick out of your ass_ ’ kept echoing in his head, even as he continued to argue with Tony, while Bruce stood between them trying to mitigate the argument, but looking even more aggravated than Steve felt. Steve had reached his end point. He threw up his hands.

“You know what? To _hell_ with this.” Steve turned around and opened the door. “Nat. Can you come in here? I can’t deal with this jerk.” He looked back at Tony and Bruce. “Nat’s going to do the write up for you guys. Keep your music down from now on.”

He glanced around the code-violating room one more time with a disgusted sigh as Nat walked in taking in the room with a look of horror. Clint was still up at his desk, oblivious to what had just happened, bobbing in time to music that was no longer playing. Steve could see the faint shape of his hearing aids sitting on his desk. Steve grabbed a bunched up pair of socks from the floor and threw it at Clint’s computer. The man turned around and looked own from his perch. Steve used what little sign language he had to violently signing W. T. F?! into the air. Clint shrugged, then caught sight of Nat. He tried to walk over to her, but forgot he was on top of the dressers, and fell to the ground like a sack of flour. He bounced back up, threw an arm over Bruce and gave Nat his best ‘How you doing?’ look. With another disgusted sigh, Steve left the room to Nat, who immediately began barking orders at the three students.

Steve stormed out of the hall. The other students had disappeared back into their rooms except for Thor and Pepper who stood at the L junction outside of the bathroom.

“Hey man, what was all that about? Seemed pretty crazy in there.” Thor asked with a smile. Steve brushed aside him in disgust. “Everything alright?”

Steve stopped in his tracks then turned around to face Thor. “Linguistics, man? You’re a linguistics major? Come on!” He scoffed and marched back to his room.

Behind him as he fumbled with the keys to his room he heard Pepper say, “Don’t worry about it. I think he’s just had a bad week.” Steve stupidly glanced back at the two of them. They were standing so close next to each other, simply staring at him. Thor looked upset, and Steve felt his stomach drop into his shoes. He wanted to vomit. He slammed his door shut and flopped on his bed, pulling out his phone and calling Sam.

“Can I stay on your guys’s couch tonight? I need to get out of here.”

“No problem. I am literally walking out the door to get you as we speak. You just tell old Sam and Buck everything over some beer. And tomorrow we surf.”

Steve hung up. He curled into the fetal position on his bed, letting out a groan. There were just two images in his head. The first was Tony’s stupid face and stupid facial hair asking to be punched, the second was Thor’s dejected face looking like a kicked puppy at the end of the hall. Then, the more he thought about it, the image of Pepper’s arm wrapped around Thor’s was creeping up too and it made him so mad and sick and he had no idea why.

Everything was awful. He groaned again and waited for Sam to tell him he was there to pick him up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta read her? I hardly know her!)


	7. Beer, Ice Cream, Nipples, Whaaaat?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Bucky are loyal, weird friends in this, Steve's first time of crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm in love with Sam and Bucky. They're like an old, married couple.

Steve cried. It was pathetic, and he was very embarrassed, and Sam and Bucky were also very embarrassed, but Steve cried anyway. Sam and Bucky were dutiful friends, and listened loyally through the snot and wibbling, nonsensical, stress-induced moaning. They listened because they were good friends, and because they understood that sometimes Steve to vent or else he would pop. 

When Sam first picked Steve up from his dorm, and he stormed out of the hall with his backpack and a change of clothes, furiously writing “Just ask Nat!” on his bulletin board, he was quiet. One could describe him as ‘staid’ or ‘terse’ even. There was nothing wrong, he just needed a break from the dorm, he said, very staidly and very tersely. His jaw was sore from gritting his teeth, but Steve insisted that nothing was wrong. _Nothing’s wrong! Why would anything be wrong?_ But Sam and Bucky were smart boys, and a few (read: many) beers and some well-directed prodding later led to Steve sitting on the floor at the foot of their couch, head in his hands, spilling his guts about the last week.

There was a long, muddy tirade against hexameters and caesurae and feet and dactyls (that had nothing to do with the dinosaur! What’s the point!?), a rundown of the awful, extremely difficult classes he’s taking outside of Poetry and Language, a rant against Pepper and Peggy and their stupid hermit crabs, and then reaming out of the Freshmen who could not remember their keys, and violent, violent threats against Tony and his stupid facial hair, followed up finally by a woeful account of Thor’s sad face and his angry nipples—

“Wait, what?” Bucky stopped Steve with a sloppy, tipsy hand on his chest. “Nipples?”

“Thor’s nipples. I ran into his room and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. And they were so angry.”

“Nipples aren’t angry, they’re just nipples. Why did you run into his room?”

“My key opens his door.”

“I’ll bet they do.”

“Bucky, dude. This is not the time for innuendo. There are nipples.”

“What better time for innuendo?”

“Hush. Tell us about the nipples, Steve.” Sam had stopped at one beer a while back, realizing someone needed to be responsible, and as such was the most coherent of the bunch.

“They were so upset that I walked in on their chest while unclothed,” Steve whispered at Sam, while Bucky giggled. “So upset, Sam.”

“Do you think Thor was upset?”

“I don’t know. He was so hot that I died.”

“Whaaat? Noooo.” Bucky looked delighted as Steve worked through what he said. “Like, whaaaaaat? You think he’s hot? Whaaat?”

“No, not like that. He’s hot like you guys are hot. Like cool-hot.”

Sam, being an intelligent young man, realized this conversation had turned from something that needed alcoholic prodding to something that was probably best figured out while sober. He stood up quickly and changed the subject. “Guys, it’s late. Ice cream, and then bed. We’re surfing tomorrow, I don’t care how hung over you are.”

“Ice cream!” cried Bucky

He pulled Steve up, and pushed him in the direction of the kitchen while Sam grabbed a carton of ice cream from the fridge, and poured a large glass of water for both of them. The two heavily tipsy boys fumbled with the stools at the counter, before finally hoisting themselves up 

“I yelled at him too. Before you picked me up.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t a big deal, man. Drink your water.”

“Have I always been awful?”

“You’re not awful. You’re stressed out.”

“It’s only the first week.”

“First week of the year can be rough. You’re not awful for having a bad week.”

Steve lay his head down on his arm on the high countertop, sprawling a little off the bench before finding his balance again. He looked at the bowl of ice cream and lazily stirred it, mushing the dessert around the bowl and every so often violently stabbing the spoon down when he thought of Tony’s stupid facial hair, while Bucky and Sam chatted above him. He was fading fast. The drinks, coupled with his awful week, and general lack of sleep due to stress was all catching up to him.

“When did we become so dull, man? It’s the first friday of the year. We’re three hot guys, why aren’t we partying or something? Meeting chicks, getting laid, getting really drunk. We can buy alcohol now. And we’re eating ice cream and blowing snot bubbles.”

“We’ll have time for parties all quarter. Besides, _Bucky_ , you look like a sex offender that walked out of a trashcan when you drink. Even now, dude. You’re all like ‘ _I’m so cool, I’m gonna eye-fuck this ice cream. I’m so seductive with my dark, broody-eyes._ ’ And when you’re drunk you go through girls’ purses and grab their makeup and try to put it on.”

“I just look really good with eyeliner, let me kvetch, dude.” Bucky slurred.

“You do. You actually really do. But it’s still weird, man.”

“You’re weird!”

“Steve, doing okay there buddy?” Sam asked, ignoring Bucky and leaning over to run his hand through Steve’s hair and keep him awake. Steve groaned in response. “Drink your water or you’ll regret it in the morning. Do you want a straw?”

“Yes please,” Steve mumbled into his arm.

“Why do you even have straws? You’re such a mom, Sammy.”

“Someone’s gotta keep Steve hydrated.”

Sam patiently waited for Bucky and Steve to finish their waters, and threw their empty ice cream bowls in the sink when they were done. Bucky and Sam worked on setting up the trundle bed in the sofa, and sent Steve off to the bathroom with his stuff, and an extra pair of pajama pants, to get ready for bed. As Steve walked down the hall haphazardly, he could hear the two of them swearing at the bed and heard more than one unfortunate sounding bang. He tossed his backpack onto the tile floor, and sat down on the toilet to pull his shoes off. He was going to just throw them anywhere, but thought about how nice Sam was being and instead gathered them and put them neatly under the sink. After some careful wiggling and maneuvering, he got out of his jeans and into the pj bottoms without having to stand up from the toilet.

Steve finally stood up and looked at himself in the mirror.

He looked like shit.

His eyes were red and puffy, and his face was blotchy from the crying. He took a deep breath and very carefully took out his contacts (at the insistence of Sam), putting them in one of the spare cases that Bucky and Sam kept in the cabinet. He was desperate to not poke himself in the eye. That would just be adding insult to injury (or injury to insult? He was not able to process the notion of idioms at all at this point in the night). He then washed and dried his face, fumbled around in his backpack for his spare glasses. When he finally found them, he put them on and ventured a look in the mirror once more. _That's a little better,_ he thought to himself. _There's hope yet._

He fumbled his way back to the living room, where the bed was all set up with sheets and pillows. Steve gracelessly flopped down, just barley remembering to take off his glasses and toss them on the side table, as Sam walked out.

"Sleep tight, dude," Sam said, flicking out the light and heading to his own room.

Steve mumbled something in return, but could not remember what. The beers were overtaking him, and his muscles were finally relaxing, melting into the sheets underneath him. As he slowly fell asleep, he thought about glasses. He liked his glasses, and he liked glasses on other people. His final thought in the darkness was whether or not Thor liked glasses too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read? Is that sanitary?)


	8. Sand and Surf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Sam take Steve out for a morning surf session, where they run into an unexpected Linguistics major out on the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Note Bene: I really, really love to watch surfing, to like an almost kink level. However, that being said, I have never surfed myself, and it is really, really hard to write.  
> • OMG, relatively happy Steve! What a treat! (Enjoy it while it lasts!)

The early morning air was crisp but not too chilly as Bucky, Sam and Steve walked down the hill to the beach at Shield Cove, sliding a little down the sandy path. There was still the slightest bit of leftover summer warmth, and the sand between their toes was already heating up. Steve was wearing one of Bucky’s spare wetsuits and using Sam’s spare board since he could not afford either of his own. It was not a huge deal to him. He did not surf nearly as well nor as often as Sam and Bucky, mostly because he did not have the time to practice like they did. The last two years he was happy to be constantly studying in lieu of surfing, but as his feet hit the water, and the sun crested over the mountains, making the cove a bright, gorgeous white, he realized how much he missed it. There was a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that he should be studying now, but for once in his life he dismissed it. Being with Sam and Bucky, and smelling the ocean, he found that he just did not care.

The three of them weren’t alone on the water either. Shield Cove was a hot spot for surfers throughout the area, and the boys paddled out to join the line and wait their turn. The salt water splashed at Steve’s face, invigorating and cleansing. The last week washed away into the Pacific. He was winded from paddling when he finally stopped to turn around and sit on his board to wait his turn. Bucky and Sam were watching the surfers ahead of them, but Steve was content to just sit in the water, closing his eyes and leaning back to feel the sun beam down on his face.

“Hey,” a voice said next to him.

Steve, turned and saw Thor; tall, broad, blond Thor, sliding up his board to a sitting position, turning around to face the line next to him. The traitorous sun, as usual, hit Thor’s hair and face perfectly. 

“Hi,” Steve finally replied, breathless still from his arduous paddling. He hated himself for not being in better shape. He could barely make eye-contact with Thor. He could feel his face turning red. “Didn’t know you surfed,” he finally said, feeling cheesy. “You didn’t have a board at the dorm.”

“Borrowing a friend’s.”

“Yeah, me too.”

They were quiet. Bucky and Sam glanced at them, but did not engage, opting instead to watch the interaction from a distance. Steve saw Bucky slap at the water next to Sam and point at Steve and Thor, face giddy. Sam promptly, calmly, austerely jumped on top of Bucky and dunked him under the water, and held him under for a few seconds pretending nothing was wrong. Steve and Thor bobbed in time together in the water, aware of the exchange but choosing not to acknowledge it. Bucky and Sam wrestled a bit in the water, and Steve and Thor stared resolutely ahead. The swell had calmed a bit, and they had to wait until another set formed. If Steve was being perfectly honest it was awkward as hell.

“Linguistics isn—“

“Tony’s a je—“

They spoke at the same time, then stunned each other into silence. Steve looked at his board, certain that Thor was glaring at him for interrupting.

“I didn’t mea—“

“I shouldn’t have—“

Steve sighed, “Go ahead,” he said, finally daring to look up at Thor, who was looking away towards the surf line.

“Tony really got to you yesterday,” Thor finally said.

“He’s insane.”

“It’s the goatee.”

“Right?”

“Right? Who does that to their face?”

They chucked together, before falling back into a slightly less awkward silence. The sound of the seagulls above them, and ocean crashing on the shore were comforting as the two of them watched the surfers ahead of them take their turns on the waves.

Sam went, just barely catching his wave after his tussle with Bucky, before claiming the water, and dropping on to the wave face. He reached the bottom of the wave and turned in, slipping into a nice-sized barrel, crouched low, as the wave broke behind him. He shot out the other side and backed off onto the water with a flourish, spinning back to look at Bucky, Steve and Thor, wearing a shit-eating grin.

Bucky politely clapped before paddling into the next wave. He was faster, with stronger arms, and caught the wave much earlier than Sam had. He started an intricate dance, climbing and dropping on the wave before finally launching up into the air, curving above the water before landing on the wave again and going under. Steve and Thor cheered as he finished, because it was pretty damned impressive. But after a moment Bucky did not come up from under the water.

“Buck?” Steve called out. He could not spot the brown-haired man, and he felt a growing wave of concern as he scanned the water for his friend. Suddenly Bucky popped up from the surface, next to Sam, spitting water at his face and cackling. Sam splashed Bucky and they tussled some more before starting the swim back to the end of the line to go again.

The waves had settled for a little bit so Steve and Thor floated at the front of the line for a moment, silent once more. Steve took a deep breath—

“I’mreallyreallysorryforyesterday,” he spat out. He could feel the blush rising on his cheeks.

Thor did not respond right away, and Steve was debating either repeating himself, or turning his board around and paddling west until he hit Japan.

“I don’t really hate Linguistics. I just… don’t get it.” Steve tried again.

“You might learn to like it,” Thor replied slowly. “It’s why I transferred here. UCM's got a good program. I’m a tutor for some of the classes. If you need help, I mean.”

“Yeah, I saw your name on Professor Coulson’s syllabus.”

“Yeah, Phil? He’s great.”

“He took off his shoes during class.”

“Eh. He’s alright.” Thor grinned at him, and Steve grinned back, before turning away, pretending to check for the wave to hide his growing blush.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. Yesterday was awful. The whole week was awful.”

“It’s alright, man.”

Steve couldn’t look at him again. He was sure that if he looked at Thor he would see ‘it’s not alright’ written all over his face. He could not bear that. The last thing he wanted was another image of Thor’s face looking upset. Upset with Steve, especially. After yesterday that would be just too much.

“Here comes your wave,” Thor finally said.

Steve started to paddle, struggling against the water, but finally catching the wave, and popping up onto his board. The water rushed quickly under him, and he opted just to stand back and feel the ocean thrum underneath his board. He bent his knees and rode it out, letting the ocean take him along. He did not get inside the barrel like Sam; the wave was a little too small for that, but it was a smooth, fast ride that left him feeling exhilarated. At the end of the wave he pulled a sharp turn, before flopping into the water. His head poked up and he saw Bucky and Sam clapping, but more importantly, Thor was smiling at him. The tall, broad, blond man gave him a big thumbs up, grinning. Steve heaved himself up onto his board and paddled to Sam and Bucky. They sat at the line and watched Thor go.

Like Steve, Thor opted to ride the middle of the wave. He popped up on his board, standing tall and gliding along like he was made of water himself. It was one of the smoothest, most flawless rides Steve had ever seen. Then he started cutting on the wave like Bucky did, riding up and down against the water, leaving fans of spray above the wave’s crest. He finally spun out and jumped off his board faster than Steve could blink. When he popped up, he shook his hair out of his face dramatically, letting out a booming laugh, before climbing back onto his board and paddling over to Steve and the boys.

Steve could not help himself, he was smiling like a goon. Chalk it up to Thor’s infectious laughter, or the fact that he was finally unwinding after the week, or that he was able to apologize to Thor, and it felt like an anvil was suddenly lifted from his chest. And that Thor said it was alright. And that Thor was clearly enjoying himself, so maybe it really was alright after all. Maybe he was forgiven. He kept smiling, his cheeks aching as Thor joined him, Sam and Bucky in the line, and they chatted and joked while they waited for the next round.

The spent the next few hours just riding through wave after wave. It was a perfect morning. At the end of their session, they ended up on the beach, settling in the warm, dry sand as the sun beamed down from above. They unzipped their suits halfway down, peeling the tight neoprene down to their waists. Steve made a point of not looking at Thor’s chest, though Bucky turned to Steve, face simultaneously lewd and impressed. Steve snorted and lay back onto the beach, closing his eyes and watching the shadow game behind his eyelids as the others chatted over his head.

“Where you from, man?” Bucky asked Thor. Steve listened, very intently in fact, but pretended to just be relaxing and not listening, the way he imagined cooler people would if they were in his position.

“I was studying down south in San Diego, but I’m kind of from all over. My dad moved a lot for business, so my brother, Loki, and I never really had a home town.”

“Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever lived?”

“Iceland, without a doubt,” Thor chuckled. “Good surfing though, if you can stand the cold.”

“You are lying. There is no surfing in Iceland.”

“There is, there is. Where’s there’s waves, there’s surfing. My brother and I were high schoolers when we lived there in Reykjavik, so perhaps we were a little crazier than we are now. But we’d go out with the thick 5mm suits, with hoods and footies and gloves. We did it one winter, when our parents were away, and we were wearing our suits, but we threw on wool sweaters and jeans over it, because it was so damned cold. It was nuts man, fucking nuts. Loki was trying to grow a beard that year, and when we finished in the water, by the time we got in the car it was frozen solid—“ he clicked his tongue “he cracked the damned thing right off in his hand.”

Steve could not help but chuckle along with the others. Someone ruffled his hair, and he opened his eyes, and saw Sam peering down at him. Steve deflated ever so slightly because he thought, if only only for a brief moment, that it might have been Thor.

“How you doing, bud?” Sam asked.

“Starting to feel human again,” he replied. _That sounded cool, right?_

“Ready for some breakfast?”

“God yes.” Steve heaved himself up.

“You’re coming too, Thor,” Bucky said. “Our house is just up the path, and like three houses down.”

“Jesus, man. How’d you get a place this close to the water?” Thor asked.

“Sheer dumb luck,” replied Bucky.

“I know the owner,” Sam said. “he’s letting me and whoever I can find use it for free while he’s gone doing research in Italy. It’s a duplex, actually. You could fit like ten college kids in there pretty comfortably if you had them. We just didn’t know anyone who wasn’t already set up in their own place, and never got around to advertising it. Alright, enough chit-chat. I bought bacon and eggs specifically for today. Sam’s magic, big-as-your-arm breakfast burritos!”

The four of them stood up, and started picking up their stuff. As Steve was tucking his board under his arm, a warm hand brush against his back.

“You’re covered in sand, dude.” Thor said behind him. Steve froze, tensing up instantly. He tried to force himself to relax but it was too late, Thor got the message. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s not bad, you just startled me.” They were back to being awkward again, and again, Steve thought  about just paddling his board straight to Japan, or maybe Hawaii where he could jump in a volcano. “Di-did you get it all?” he felt pathetic as the words left his mouth. Thor’s hand was so warm on his skin, and he wished it had never left. Thor nodded, and pursed his lips, before looking away and trudging after Sam up the hill.

Steve stood there for a moment, before Bucky wrapped an arm around his neck started pushing him towards the path. “That was really fucking stupid, Steve,” he said.

“Fuck off, Bucky.”

“Oof. Such bad language. I’m telling your mom. Come on, breakfast will help.”

Bucky untangled himself from around Steve and darted up the hill, leaving Steve behind. Steve slowly worked his way up the the sandy path. With each step he remembered why he was over on this side of town in the first place, and how awful the last week had been. He tried to put it all behind him, but it was harder and harder as he moved further and further from the beach. He met Thor and Bucky on the porch as Sam fiddled with his key before opening the door. They joked, and chatted, and things were relatively normal. Sam cooked, and Steve learned a little bit more about Thor, but nothing serious, and Bucky and Sam bantered back and forth, before Steve grabbed the newspaper that had been dropped off the porch and the two journalism majors began to study it religiously, much to Thor and Steve’s amusement.

Afterwards, Sam drove them back up the hill on to campus, letting Thor keep his borrowed board at Sam and Bucky’s place. As Sam drove off, and Steve and Thor walked back towards Guass, they were quiet, chatting a little but mostly just meandering. They had grown silent by the time they reached the door the building and as they walked up the stairs, the only sound was their footsteps echoing against the wall. They reached the third floor and stood at the end of the hall for a moment, before they walked ahead and stopped in front of their respective rooms, fumbling with their keys.

They each stood a moment in their open doorways, and Steve ventured a look back at Thor, who had turned around and gave a small smile to Steve.

“Let me know if you need any help with Linguistics, yeah? I really don’t mind.”

“Yeah, yeah okay.”

Silent again.

“Right,” Thor said after a moment. “Later man.”

Steve looked at the floor, and was about to ask if Thor wanted to hang out and do something, _anything,_ but he couldn’t think of a good _thing_ for them to do, and as he looked back up the door to room 301 clicked with Thor on the other side and Steve let out a sigh. “Later…” he said to the door.

He went into his room and slumped down at his desk. He let out yet another sigh, pulled his computer from his bag, and plugged in his charger. He found his weekly planner, and decided on his Biochem lab write-up, and started working once more, feeling the weight of responsibility being to push down on him once more. He took a deep breath, tried to imagine the cool water on his skin, the pull of the ocean and the salt in the air. Instead all he saw was blond hair in the sunlight, blue eyes crinkling with laughter in the water, and a warm hand on the skin of his back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Dun nuh, dun nuh, dun nuh dunnuh, dunnuh, dunnuh, dunnuh *SHARK ATTACK!
> 
> ...You're gonna need a bigger Beta Read).


	9. Rude Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter we learn a little bit more about Tony, Bruce and Clint, while really not gaining any information at all. Steve also meets Jane Foster after class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Love Jane, btw. She's definitely my favorite Marvel Lady. We'll see more of her!  
> • Poor Steve though. I just really enjoy torturing him, I'm so sorry.

The next Monday, Bruce settled down next to Steve at the lefty desk, just like usual. Again, Steve was finishing his dining hall bagel, and Bruce was sipping his disposable cup of tea. They had seen each other in this class three times last week, but because of the incident in room 305, Steve felt like he and Bruce had gone back to square one. The door to 305 had been shut all weekend, at least whenever Steve walked by, and out of the three who lived in the triple Steve had only seen Clint, who had come to visit Steve, not so subtly asking about Nat. Steve wanted to be upset, and huffy, but could not quite pull it off now that he was finally sitting next to Bruce. It was hard to be anything but calm around the slightly haggard, but serene looking man. 

“Why did you pull me into the room so quick on friday?” Steve finally asked in lieu of a greeting.

“I thought you were Rhodey,” Bruce replied, fumbling around his backpack for his power cord. “Tony’s science buddy from Galileo House across the quad.”

Bruce found it and pulled it out. Steve had to move his leg awkwardly for Bruce to halfway crawl under him to reach the outlet in the floor under his seat. “Was Rhodey going to help Tony?” Steve asked, peering over the arm of his seat at Bruce.

“Rhodey was probably going to do the same thing you did.”

“If only Rhodey had been on time.”

Bruce snorted, and they settled into silence for a few minutes, both of them watching their computers boot up. Other students slowly trickled in around them, and the room was filled with vague murmuring, and the ruffling of textbooks and papers and computers.

“So, Macbook Air? Good computer?” Steve wondered if that was Bruce’s opening line whenever things got awkward, or if it was just for him.

“It’ll do,” Steve replied. “I needed something kind of apple-y because I draw comics for the student paper, but not too expensive either.” Steve had actually gotten the cheapest Apple product he could. The tiny 11” computer was small enough that he was not tempted to do anything on it except his homework and taking notes. He thanked his lucky stars for his student discount, because all the work he put in the summer before his freshman year just barely covered the machine. He simultaneously hardly touched it and kept it in prime condition with consistent cleanings and monthly updates and checks. It was the most expensive thing he owned.

“City in the Woods or the Fish Wrap?”

“City in the Woods Press, yeah. Those Fish Wrap kids are just a little too much for me.”“Yeah, Tony writes to them all the time. His letters are basically their own column.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“It’s the goatee.”

“Yeah, Thor said the same thing.”

“The linguistics major? Tall guy?”

“Yeah. Yeah…”

Silence again. Steve took a bite of his bagel; Bruce sipped his tea.

“I’m sorry about Tony. He’s pretty impossible. Like, he’s a genius, but sometimes I think it’s not even worth it. The last few years have been pretty wild. He took Psych 1-01 and then successfully Pavlov conditioned me with blueberries to make coffee each morning when I woke up. I don’t even drink coffee. He wrote about it and turned it in instead of taking the final and got an A.”

“Did you choose to live with him? That doesn’t seem like a good fit at all.”

“I did this year and last, before I took that time off.” Steve tried to keep his face blank. It was the only way he could think of to be polite. “I was randomly assigned to him year before last when he was a freshman and I was a junior. I wouldn’t go back to any other roommate, if I’m being honest, unless it was Clint, but even then I’d miss Tony.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tony’s a brilliant scientist, which I appreciate, and actually… actually, a really good person, underneath it all. He—” Bruce stopped himself.He took a sip of his tea and turned to look at Steve, studying him closely. His eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, and Steve sat still, not breaking eye contact. “But that’s really not a conversation for a Monday morning. I think. That’s not a conversation I want to have sober, honestly. And your plate seems full enough anyway.”

Steve opened his mouth, set to ask Bruce for more, for anything more, but knew nothing more would come of it by the look on Bruce’s face. He sighed. “But what about Clint?”

“What about Clint?”

“Did he just join your room because a computer put him there?”

“No, no, he and Tony requested each other when they were freshman, so I think I just got mushed in with them because I know sign language. We’ve all been together ever since. If anything, I’m the odd one out of the group.”

Steve was about to protest that, but their professor strolled in, setting his bag down and plugging in his computer in one fell swoop, pausing for just a beat before beginning to lecture about the lymph nodes. The lights dimmed, and Steve and Bruce started tapping away at their keyboards.

Steve tried to pay attention, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He mindlessly copied down what was written on the slides, not really hearing the professor speak. His mind was just elsewhere. He wondered what Tony had done to endear himself so much to Bruce. He wondered about Clint too, who just seemed like the average college dude, though definitely more interested in Nat, and therefore lacking a lot of the self-preservation skills most college dudes had.

And, though he did not want to admit it, he was also thinking about seeing Thor again. Just this time last week, Steve had ran into him as he left the lecture hall. At the end of the Wednesday class, they walked by each other at a crowded bottleneck just barely making eye-contact. When the Friday class ended, Steve saw him talking to Professor Coulson near the small cafe by the lecture hall, but did not engage, as that was the day after Steve walked in on Thor and his angry nipples. He also had no desire to talk to Professor Coulson and have the conversation devolve into words that Steve did not understand. He did not count these as times when he actually saw Thor. As such, he thought that maybe today would be the day.

The lecture ended, and Steve was left with barely a page of notes. Bruce glanced at his screen as they packed up their bags. He gave Steve a look that Steve did not realize anyone but his mother could wear, equal parts disgruntled, uncomprehending, and amused.

“Study session tonight?”

“Yeah,” Steve said bashfully. “Looks like.”

“You don’t get to fail. I need someone to sit with for the next class in the sequence next quarter.” 

Steve chuckled, and they arranged at time to meet up before they went their separate ways, going to Steve’s room, rather than the dreaded 305. Steve headed out of the lecture hall, blinking in the bright light.

“Hey!”

Steve looked at the voice, expecting it to be directed at someone else, prepared to keep walking towards the dorms, but turned and saw a tall, broad, blond man step through a beam of sunlight in the trees, heading towards Steve with a smile. Steve’s heart leapt rudely and unexpectedly in his chest, and his breath hitched slightly before he turned and headed over to Thor. Then, in another act of unexpected rudeness, his heart plummeted to his feet. Behind Thor darted a very small, dark-haired young lady with glasses and a large backpack. Though it may have just seemed large because she was small. Though she may have just seemed small because she was standing next to Thor. Oh, she was standing _so close to Thor._ It was an invasion of privacy to be standing that close. Maybe it came with being an RA, but Steve just wanted to shove a balloon in-between them, just to ensure they left room for Jesus. It had to be an RA thing. Steve’s mind flitted back to the free condom talk with Mr. Fury and the other RAs, which was traumatizing to say the least. But there was also, a very small, very buried deep with his heart at his feet, part of him that wanted to stand that close to Thor.

Instead, he stood where he was supposed to. Neither too close, nor too far and smiled at the small young lady at Thor’s side, thinking she looked just vaguely familiar.

“You’re Steve! Thor told me about you!” she said brightly.

“Uh-oh, hope he hasn’t said too much,” Steve forced out, painfully finding his way into the small-talk pattern.

“All good things, don’t worry!” the lady replied.

“And this is Jane Foster!” Thor beamed. “We actually used to date when we were still wee babes in high school.”

“In Iceland?”

“No, this was the year I was in New Mexico. But yeah, I didn’t know she was here, and she didn’t know I was here. We would not have found out unless she hadn’t stopped at the cafe to meet a professor.” Steve silently wished she had not stopped at the cafe to meet a professor. If only his hoodie were a time hoodie and he could go back and set the cafe on fire before she got there…

“Jane Foster?” The name was ringing a bell and he could picture her face on his computer screen. It was from one of the school-wide emails. “You’re the one who won the big astrophysics prize last year.” He smiled, but felt his heart drop even further down than he thought possible. Perhaps there was an intricate cavern system underneath his feet? _That’s rude, heart. Come on._ Not only was she a beautiful ex-girlfriend (and she was beautiful, Steve had to admit), but she was a genius; an actual genius.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Well congrats. I read your thesis. Didn’t understand all of it, but it seemed pretty good.”

“She’s so smart,” Thor said proudly, wrapping an arm around her tiny shoulders. “I don’t know why she ever dated me.”

“I needed some tall to reach lab equipment.”

They all laughed politely, and Steve felt he had chit-chatted enough. He hitched his backpack up on his shoulder and picked up his slowly dying heart from the pavement.

“I gotta head back. It was nice to meet you, Jane. I’ll see ya, Thor.”

“Bye Steve, really great meeting you!” Jane chirped. Steve turned around and saw her walk Thor into the lecture hall for his Linguistics class, chatting fondly. Thor turned and glanced back at Steve, giving him a small wave, before heading in. Steve tried to smile, but was sure it came out as more of a grimace.

Steve kept walking; across the street, up Cardiac Hill, through the mini-quad, into Guass House, up the stairs, down the hall and finally into room 302. He lay down on his bed, dumping his backpack at his desk. He closed his eyes, but the image of Thor and Jane mushed together happily was burned into his retinas. Part of him wanted to hate Jane. Like, really, _really_ hate her, but Thor’s bright smile as he looked down at her made it kind of impossible. And she was so nice and chipper. Steve bet that she never made Thor look upset the way he did last Friday. 

He sniffled ( _allergies_ , he told himself), and wiggled under the covers, kicking his shoes off, and pulling the blankets over his head with a sad sigh. He did not have anything scheduled until he had to meet up with Bruce, and taking a nap was as good an option as any.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Optional Step: Beta read at 350° before taking fic out of oven, for warm, gooey correct punctuation and spelling).


	10. Red, White and Aruba Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is overpowered by Peggy and Pepper who have a massive collection of nail polishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • I feel like Peggy and Pepper could gauge just how broken Steve really is, and can use that to their advantage in order to paint his toenails. Like sharks who can smell blood.  
> • Peggy and Pepper also obviously can read Steve better than he can. I think Peggy is a Steve/Thor shipper, while Pepper is on the fence.  
> • Advanced Lit, Peggy's sort of major, is not a real department in any university. I know this. I just did not know what else to call it. Maybe it's comparable to Comparative Lit, but even then that's a stretch. Any Literature people feel free to help me out.  
> • I took some of the text from the horoscopes from Elle.com. Because there is no way in heck I could write a horoscope and not get super sarcastic with it.
> 
> **• There is a tiny bit of discussion about Clint's deafness near the end of this chapter. I myself am not deaf, so in a lot of ways, writing it was a bit challenging. I took my cues from a few friends and acquaintances who are deaf, and their experience with it, as well as doing a good deal of online research. But I am still fallible, and won't pretend I'm not. If you have any experience, and can offer any advice or tips about Clint's portrayal, I would be very appreciative, because I want to have more of it in this story, as I think it's a very important part of Clint's character.**

“And _then_ , he had the audacity to say that there was no possible way I could be the next Hemingway or Joyce if I took up writing, and I asked him why, but he wouldn’t say, but I knew why. Sexist pig. And he was acting really shocked about me being there in the first place last week, and finally asked ‘You got into the Advanced Lit Department? _You_?’ and I looked at him straight in the eye all like, ‘What, like it’s hard?’” Peggy huffed, and ran the nail file along Steve’s toes; her sanding becoming more and more violent as she told her story. Steve was convinced that if she did not stop soon, he would not have any toenails left.

“You go girl,” Pepper said.

“That sounds pretty bad, Peggy. Maybe you should report him?” Steve suggested, trying to distract Peggy from his toes.

“No, Professor Flynn has tenure. He should just take that tenure and shove it up his pock-marked a—“

“Ew gross! Don’t even say it!” Pepper cried out, much to Steve’s relief.

Steve was sitting on the floor of Peggy and Pepper’s room, on a pink, flowery beanbag chair. He did not quite know how he got there, smelling of lavender-scented moisturizer, having his toenails trimmed and filed. No, he _knew_ how he got there. He just wanted to go to the bathroom. He just needed to pee. Peeing meant walking by the open door of room 304, where Peggy and Pepper lived. Their room was still not quite up to code, but Steve found he did not care today, and was about to just march by when a siren call from within beckoned him.

“Steve Hey Steve!” They sounded so sweet when they called out to him as he passed by their room.

“Ladies.” The two women giggled.

“Come in!” Peggy said. “We were feeling so bad about last week, we want to make it up to you.”

Steve leaned into the room. It seemed innocuous enough. At this point on that Tuesday morning there was nothing that looked like grooming products visible to the naked eye. Steve should have known better though. “It’s not a problem, really. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, but we do!” Pepper said.

“Come in, sit down. Let’s start things over and chat, and just get to know each other.”

Steve, who did not have his Poetry and Language class for another few hours, and had just finished up both the write-up for the weekend’s readings (which he fudged up more than anything else, just trying to fill the page without changing the font to size 20) as well as another one of his Biochem labs, literally had no reason not to step into the girls’ room. _What’s the worst that could happen?_ He thought to himself as he stepped in. Peggy and Pepper shoved him down onto their pink beanbag chair in one surprising, smooth, almost violent motion, and suddenly he was trapped.

That was then. Present Steve wanted to go back and warn Past Steve about this unfortunate turn of events. Present Steve knew better. Past Steve was in big trouble, if only Present Steve could let him know.

“Okay, Steve? What color do you want?” Pepper asked, mercifully pulling the file away from Peggy and taking over at Steve’s feet.

“What color do I want for what?”

“When’s your birthday?” said Peggy, pulling out a magazine from her nightstand “I was reading some horoscopes earlier, and Pep and I were trying to figure out which one was yours.”

“Sorry, what color do I want for what?”

“Answer the question!”

“Which question?”

“Your birthday!” 

“July 4th.”

“Really!?”

“Y-yes.”

“Oooh! Red, white and blue!” Peggy and Pepper said together. They giggled, and brought out a small, wheeled plastic cart, with five drawers that made an awful clattering noise. It all actuality it sounded only like hundreds of tiny glass bottles rattling against each other, but to Steve it was something closer to pins being pulled out of hundred of tiny, colorful grenades and Steve had unwittingly hurled himself on top of them. Pepper pulled out two of the drawers and inside were more bottles of nail polish than Steve had ever seen in his life, and there were still three drawers left in the cart. In one drawer were a few dozen pinks and reds, in the other were all the greens and blues.

“I can do little flags on your big toes, but you have to sit very, very still.”

“Oh no, that’s fine really, save your polish.”

“Steve, we’ve committed. We’re doing this. Then maybe we’ll deep condition your hair.” Pepper stared straight into Steve’s face, and Steve saw something terrifying behind her blue eyes and he had no choice but to acquiesce.It was that or face some consequences that he did not want to meet. Like murder. “Okay, I think Aruba Blue, obviously, but should we use Scarlet O’Hara or Leading Lady for the red?”

“Leading Lady has the sparkles right? Do that one.” Peggy replied.

“Sparkles?” Steve’s voice reached an octave he did not think possible, but it went unheard as the two women chatted above him.

“Okay, July 4th, that makes you a Cancer, right?” Steve nodded as Peggy riffled through the pages of her magazine. Pepper grabbed Steve’s foot in her menacing claws and Steve felt the blood rush from his face as the brush with paint came closer and closer to his pinky toe. Peggy continued: “Right, let’s see here; _Because you’re ruled by the moon, as well as being a highly sensitive water sign, your feelings wax and wane without explanation. You get overwhelmed when there is too much going on._ Steve that does sound a bit like you.”

“I’m not highly sensitive,” Steve murmured, but Peggy did not hear him.

“ _Romantically, your standards can be breathtakingly high, you weather long bouts of celibacy waiting for The One to reveal himself._ Or, well, ‘herself,’ I would imagine,” she amended. Steve did not say anything, hoping that that was the right reaction to get Peggy to just move on. It wasn’t. Peggy and Pepper both stopped and looked at him, studying his face. “Or _himself_?”

Steve let out a non-committal, vague, groaning sound, looking up at the ceiling to avoid making eye-contact with the two women.

“Or either?” Peggy asked.

Again Steve let out a vague groaning sound, but one that sounded ever so slightly more affirmative. Peggy and Pepper gasped.

“Pay up!” Pepper yelled. “I told you! I told you, if anyone’s gonna swing both ways, it’ll be Stevie. It’s always the quiet ones with the sticks up their butt.”

Steve was about to protest everything the two girls were saying, but found he did not have the energy. He had also not been called ‘Stevie’ since he was in grammar school, and the feeling of being nine years-old again was not a fun one. Arguing with the girls was a fight for another day. Peggy grabbed her wallet and passed Pepper a $5 bill. Steve found himself also mildly irked that his sexuality warranted so little money. Peggy found her magazine again and finished reading.

“ _You will be happy with a Scorpio or Capricorn. Either of those signs will complement your natural compassionate tendencies.”_

“I don’t think I’m compassionate,” Steve said. Peggy ignored him.

“ _However, avoid looking for love with a Sagittarius, you two will be just too different.”_

“What date is Sagittarius?” Steve found himself asking.

“It says, November 22nd through December 21st.”

Pepper had gone back to painting his nails. She had stuck some sort of foam divider between his toes, and Steve was certain if he tried to walk, he would be immediately crippled, unable to grip the floor with his now-separated toes if he tried to make a dash for it.. Peggy jumped up onto the bed behind him, and ran her fingers through his hair. He was at their mercy, but with Peggy ruffling his hair, it suddenly did not feel so dire.

“God, your hair is thicker than it looks! I don’t think we need to condition it. I think we need to clone him, and find out what secrets are in his genes. Maybe Bruce will help.”

“And he’s got those eyelashes,” Pepper said, not taking her eyes off of her work. “God, it’s not fair. Boys always get good eyelashes and thick hair. And here I am thinking about extensions and breaking my fingers in my eyelash curler.”

“God, I know!” Peggy replied. “I’m about to start using falsies. And look at this, I think if it were longer, Steve’s hair would curl naturally. Do you know how many hours I spend in the morning curling my hair, Steve? It’s garbage.”

Steve did not know how to answer, but at the same time he was not sure his answer was actually necessary in this conversation. He tried anyway. “I think you both look very nice,” he said lamely.

“Awww,” both women cooed, before chatting once more.

“See, Steve’s not nearly as stuck up as we thought he was.”

“We’ll find you a nice someone, don’t you worry, Stevie.”

“I don’t—“

“Oh here, Steve. Eat a cookie.” Out of nowhere, Peggy produced a plastic bucket filled with cookies. The label said ‘Caramel Cashew Bonanzas’ and Steve found he could not say no to something with a name like that. He opened the box and began to dig in. They were wonderful. Peggy and Pepper continued to chat, and Steve finally melted into their ministrations just a little. He watched as Pepper artfully drew very tiny stars on his big toes over a blue — “ _Aruba Blue, Steve”_ — background. She drew little red and white stripes along the rest his toes. It was actually very impressive. All the while, Peggy was rubbing his scalp, and Steve was sure that at any moment he might just start purring like a cat. He opened his eyes, and scanned the room a little bit. Martha and Wally were in a smaller tank, with a certificate tapped to the glass wall.

“Did you really get your hermit crabs certified?” Steve asked in awe.

Pepper blew on his toes, “Of course. I don’t actually like breaking the rules, Steve. And I can’t trust Wally and Martha to my parents, can you imagine?”

Steve did not know her parents, and therefore could not imagine.

“Besides, they’re family,” said Peggy warmly. Steve leaned his head back and glanced up at her. She smiled down at him, eyes fond and bright. She was a very lovely lady, he realized just then. He smiled back. This was nice. 

“What are you going to do about Professor Flynn?” He finally asked. 

“I really don’t know. Just turn in my essay under a man’s name and get a higher grade probably.”

“Good grief.”

“What the hell?”

Peggy, Pepper and Steve turned and looked towards the doorway, where the mystery voice came from. There stood Clint and Thor, staring back at them in shock. Steve could not help but smile at Thor, but noticed the other man did not return it.

“Hi boys!” Pepper chirped. “Look what Steve let me do to his toenails.”

“Woah, that’s not half bad,” Clint replied, stepping into the room and looking down at Steve’s feet.

“What are you two up to?” Peggy asked.

“Just got back from the Linguistics office. Thor asked me if I was interested in doing some tests. Got ten bucks!”

“Ooh, very nice.”

“Did your hearing aids make the test different?”

“No, I mean, Thor was getting info for how I, a deaf person, pronounced things. I actually probably could have done it without even wearing them. If it was something I had to listen to it'd be different. It's hard with my hearing aids to sometimes get the right combination of distance and background noise to make the sounds make sense.”

“You don’t have those cochlear implant things do you?”

“Nah, they’re too expensive. And like, I don’t really want ‘em. I just use the hearing aids to help with getting around and classes, but like, I don’t need a permanent fix, you know? Even in classes, I’m better just watching the signer in the front. And even if it was like, a miracle cure, like they say it is, which it isn’t, I don’t like, need to be cured, you know?”

“Damn right.” said Pepper.

Clint kept chatting amicably with the girls, and was looking at their impressive nail polish collection, and Pepper gave him a squirt of the lavender moisturizer, which he gleefully rubbed in his hands. Thor, however stayed standing in the doorway. Steve glanced over at him and saw he was wearing a strange expression on his face, but he could not quite gauge what it was or what was wrong. He smiled at Thor when their eyes met, and Thor sort of smiled back, but it was a little distant. Peggy gave his head a little nudge, pulling his attention away from Thor.

“Give us a cookie?”

“Sure. Hey, Thor you want one?” Steve looked back up to the door, cookie in hand, ready to give to the tall, broad, blond man, but Thor had left. Steve could hear the door at the end of the hall open and shut, echoing back into the girls’ room. He sighed, shoulders slumping. He should have offered sooner. He should have stood up to say hi to Thor. He should have done _something_.

Peggy ran her hand through his hair one more, then slid down and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “I think that might have been my fault,” she whispered. Steve looked back up at her, confused. She gave him a pointed look, but whatever she was trying to convey was just not getting through to him, and found himself shaking his head at her. “Really? _Really_?” She sighed. “Eat another cookie.”

Steve took the offered cookie, and sat still while Clint sloppily painted the clear topcoat of nail polish over his little American flags. The others chatted around him, but he was not really engaged in the conversation. He took a bite of the cookie. It tasted the same, but at the same time it did not taste nearly as good as before.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Actually Beta Read is the name of the thing we're supposed to do. You're thinking of Beta Read's Monster).


	11. Headbang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has to take a shower at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • I will fully admit that I was planning on making this a little more 'hey sexy shower time' but then decided to drop it for something more realistic.  
> • Yes, I did this in the dorm showers.  
> • They aren't vitamins.  
> • Bohemian Rhapsody is the property of its owners, and I have not made any money off of it here.

Steve walked down the hall with his shower caddy, towel and sandals — the only pair of sandals he owned, specifically for not having to stand in the dorm showers. It was late in the evening, and he had just finished studying for his first Physio test and was finally able to go and wash up. He had rushed out Wednesday morning without a shower because his alarm did not go off. He barely made it down to Hahn Hall before the lecture started. Thank god for Bruce, who opened his bag and handed him a granola bar as Steve sat down, or else Steve’s stomach would have been grumbling loudly the whole class.

That was this morning, which set the mood for the rest of the day. Steve had been busy the entire day, first rushing down to the press office to meet Sam and discuss possible comics, and critique the small amount of work he’d done. Then he had gone over to Stevenson building, thinking he was going to go to Thor’s office hours. But he chickened out, and instead went to the office hours for his biochem lab TA, pretending to need more help than he did (this was actually one of the smartest things he did all day, because his TA told him all sorts of things about an upcoming test). After that he had to run across campus to meet Bucky and Sam for lunch, then darted back to Guass House to have his study session with Bruce. Then one thing led to another and it was 6:30, and he headed down to the dining hall to eat dinner with Clint, Peggy and Pepper. He finally realized how grubby he felt when he was swiping his card in the dining hall. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to make it until the next morning if he did not take shower.

After dinner (curry with rice and naan, it was not too shabby for dorm food, and Steve remembered why he wanted to live in Guass House. They had the best dining hall on campus), Steve tried to do the reading for his Poetry and Language class, and slogged through it, barely comprehending, before giving up, doing a little bit of studying for Physio and then gathering his things.

He had never taken a shower at night in Guass House. He was always a morning shower-er and the routine was already in place. Bruce was always just finishing up when Steve got into the bathroom and headed to one of the three shower stalls; one of his freshman (John? Jim? Jeremey Morita? the one from Fresno), entered and left the bathroom silently, showering without a word; and Pepper was always doing her makeup when Steve was done. One morning he had come out with just a towel wrapped around his waist, and Pepper stopped what she was doing to turn around and smile lewdly at him, looking very appreciative. From then on Steve got dressed in the stall, or at least wore his t-shirt out.

But tonight was different. He had to shower; he would not be able to sleep because he just felt so grungy. He walked into the bathroom and the first thing he saw was Tony’s bare ass as it slipped into the first shower stall. He made a noise, and Tony stuck his head out from behind the shower curtain.

“Oh, I thought you were Thor.”

“I— why would you think that?”

“Ooh. Wouldn’t you want to know? Naughty!”

“I uh—“ Steve was left at a loss. He could just not form words It was the goatee; it was distracting.

“Ah, Thor! There you are! Steve wants to write us up for something.”

“What for?” Thor asked.

“I uh—“

“Because Steve here is sucking the dick of The Man! A slave to authority! A pawn in the cog of illusion!”

“I just want to shower,” Steve finally got out.

“Oh,” Tony stopped his tirade. “That’s good, we can always use a third.”

“A third what?”

Thor sighed beside him, before making his way to the second stall, “You’ll see.” He called out, before disappearing behind the curtain. Steve saw the outline of Thor’s torso illuminated by the light, as the tall, broad, blond man stretched up to take off his shirt. Then Thor bent over, taking off his pants, the curve of his spine stark with fluorescent backlighting against the white shower curtain.. Steve had a flashback to stumbling in on Thor without his shirt, and now the silhouette of his body there, naked, just beyond the curtain was just a little too much.Thanks to an unnecessary rush of blood to a part of his anatomy, Steve found he had to subtly readjust himself in his jeans, using his towel as a shield as he stood in the middle of the bathroom.

It was no good. Tony saw it. And Steve saw that Tony saw it. Their eyes met, and Steve knew then the jig was up. Tony had every reason to rat him out, after the way they had fought the other week. Steve was ready to run out of the bathroom, and never shower again. His body was tense. He could feel the red-hot flush rising up his neck to his cheeks. He was ready to be struck by lightning.

Then, in an act of incredible mercy and saintliness, Tony cleared his throat. “Well, get in your stall, Rogers. We don’t have all day.”

Steve let out a deep breath he had not realized he was holding and rushed over to the last stall, mouthing a silent ‘thank you’ to Tony as he passed. He quickly stripped down and turned on the water — cold, for obvious reasons — and tried not to think about Thor standing naked next to him less than a foot away beyond the partition.

“Right, Thor have you been practicing?” Tony asked, voice serious above the rushing water. Probably sounding more serious than would be possible if Steve could see his goatee.

“Sweet lord, I have not.”

“Excellent!”

“Practicing for what?”

“Steve, enough with your questions. I’ll do something you’ll know, because you clearly have been studying under a rock for about a thousand years.”

“What?”

Steve heard Thor chuckle on the other side of the partition, and the sound echoed off the tile walls and settled deep in the pit of his abdomen. The three of them grew quiet, save for the splash of water against their bodies and the floor. Then Steve heard something strange, coming out of Tony’s stall.

_“Is this the real life? Is just this fantasy? Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality.”_

Steve bit back a laugh. Tony’s singing voice was actually not too shabby. Thor had joined in, and the two men’s voices reverberated through the bathroom over Steve’s giggles. The song continued, and Steve’s cheeks hurt from trying to hold in huge barks of laughter at the sheer insanity of it all.

 _“Little high, little low. Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me… to meee._ Steve, I swear to god if you’re not singing we’re kicking you out and keeping your clothes and towel.”

“I don’t know guys.”

“Quick! We’ve only a few beats le— _Mamaaa… Just killed a man. Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he’s dead…”_

Tony and Thor kept singing, getting more and more impassioned as they went through the song. They harmonized, they falsettoed. It was very impressive. They even sang little “do do do’s” for the piano parts, with perfect pitch, in perfect time. Steve did not know what else he could do, so he took a deep breath and—

_“Mama! OooOooOoohhh!_

_“Any way the wind blows.”_ Tony sang.

 _“I don’t to die! Sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all!”_ Steve reached a pitch he did not think he ever could and damn, it felt good.

“Yeah, man!” Thor whooped.

Tony began to vocalize the guitar solo, and Steve and Thor joined in. If one were too look under under the curtains and stall partitions, one would see three sets of feet tapping up and down in time to music that was not actually there.

 _“I SEE A LITTLE SILHOUETTO OF A MAN.”_ Thor was practically screaming at this point, voice booming through the bathroom and out into the hall, but neither Steve nor Tony cared, because they were practically screaming as well.

_“SCARAMOUCHE, SCARAMOUCHE. Will you do the fandango!?”_

_“THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTING!”_

_“VERY VERY FRIGHTING ME!”_

They kept it up, song echoing against the tiles. They kept getting louder and louder, singing high falsettos and low drones at the top of their lungs.

“Alright! Headbanging time!” Tony yelled, before screaming out the guitar solo.

“There’s not enough room!” Thor cried out.

“Damnit Thor, HEADBANG!”

“My hair’s stuck on the shower!”

“HEAD BANG!”

Again, if one were to look under the curtains of the showers, three sets of feet would be bouncing off the floor, barely gripping the tiles; precariously, dangerously stomping around through the wet puddles.

“Stevie! It’s you! Go”

Steve grabbed his shampoo bottle, holding it like a microphone and felt the words leaving his mouth, straining his vocal cords as they went, before he even knew what he was doing.

_“SO YOU THINK YOU CAN STONE ME AND SPIT IN MY EY-EE! SO YOU THINK YOU CAN LOVE ME AND LEAVE ME TO DIE-EEEE!”_

All three of them joined in, “ _OOH BABY. CAN’T DO THIS TO ME BABY. JUST GOTTA GET OUT! JUST GOTTA GET RIGHT OUTTA HERE!”_

They kept vocalizing the music solos, slowly winding down as the song began to wrap up.

_“Nothing really matters… anyone can see… nothing really matters…”_

_“To meeee.”_ They all finished together, in a beautiful three part harmony.

Then it was over. It grew quiet again. The water was starting to get a little cold, so Steve rushed to finish up his shower, rinsing off his soap, and shutting off the water, while Thor and Tony did the same next to him. Thor chuckled, and Steve was just hit with the bizarre little twist the night had taken.

He ran his towel over his body and through his hair, pulled an old high school t-shirt that was probably too small and his pajama pants (carefully navigating his foot through the pant leg and back into his shower sandal without stepping on the tiles). He stepped out into the common area of the bathroom, ready to set his stuff down on the counter in front of the mirror and brush his teeth. Tony had not yet come out of the stall, and was humming quietly in his corner as he ruffled through his things.

Thor was already at the sink, putting deodorant on underneath his shirt, though he was only wearing a pair of black briefs. Tight, black briefs. Steve stared at the outline of his rear for a short moment, before yanking his gaze away, walking up to the counter and pretending to look at his face in the mirror, leaning close to examine an invisible pimple and get Thor and his long, thick legs out of his periphery vision. With ever so lightly shaking hands began brushing his teeth. Steve watched out of the corner of his eye as Thor pulled a plastic, weekly pill box from his leather Dopp kit. He popped the top off of Wednesday’s section and poured a half a dozen pills into his hand, tossing them back in his mouth before turning on the sink faucet and leaning under the running water and taking a mouthful before throwing his head back and swallowing. “Vitamins,” he murmured, noticing Steve’s curious look.

Steve felt like making a quip about maybe just changing to a multi vitamin, but at that moment, Tony stepped out from behind shower curtain dramatically. He wore a bright pink towel wrapped around his head, and nothing else.

Nothing else at all.

“Gentleman, it was an honor and a privilege. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight Tony,” Thor said casually, clearly used to this sort of behavior.

Tony left the room, and Steve heard the sound of him kicking the door to room 305 open with a crash. It closed behind him, and just like that the naked goateed man had left as mysteriously as he had arrived. Like Willy Wonka, or a serial killer.

Steve looked over at Thor who was running a brush through his hair, with a scrunchie in his mouth. He then deftly gathered his hair in his hands and braided it, tying off the end with his hair-tie. Steve finished brushing his teeth, spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing with water. He bundled up his things at the same time as Thor, who waggled his eyebrows playfully at Steve, before turning and heading out the door. Steve followed and they walked together around the corner and down their hall. They stopped in front of their respective doors, fumbling with their keys. Steve turned around and met Thor’s eyes. They smiled at each other but did not move from their respective door frames.

“Well,” Steve finally said. “Goodnight.”

“Yeah. Same time tomorrow, man?”

Steve did not even hesitate when he replied, “Absolutely.”

Thor smiled at him once more and went into his room, closing the door after him. The smile left Steve’s heart light and bubbly as he went into his own room and flopped down on the bed.

From that point on Steve showered at night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read and lighning! Very, very frightening me!)


	12. The Bad, The Worse and the Awful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and the rest of the City in the Woods Press get some shocking, upsetting news. Then there is a surprise visitor in Guass House.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Can you guess what's going on with poor Thor? It's okay if you can't, because I am a bad writer.  
> • The budget cuts described in this chapter are very, very exaggerated. However, there is a grain of truth in them. During my tenure at school, I saw a few majors get cut, and was also a student during the Occupy Movement. There was a lot of rough school-related protests and news stories at the time, and as a member of the Broadcast News Outlet, I was kind of in the thick of it. Obviously there was no hacking, but it was still a big, years-long thing.

“Ladies, you be sure to bring yourself over to Steve so he can escort you to the best Halloween party this year. I’m going to be there, along with plenty of other eligible bachelors, and we’d be pretty ecstatic if you came.”

Steve was walking up the steps with Nat after the montly RA meeting with Fury to find Bucky standing in the hallway in front of room 304, leaning against the doorway languidly, chatting with Peggy and Pepper. A few weeks had passed and it was finally full autumn. Steve had to tell Fury about the incident with Tony belaying out the window. There was also something else the matter on his floor. Thor had not been around. Steve saw him occasionally, but he was not sure if he was going to classes. Something about him just dropped off, and he was like a ghost. He wandered through the halls at odd hours, going to the bathroom, or getting a snack at the dining hall and bringing it back to his room, but it got to a point where Steve was worried enough to tell Fury. But even Mr. Fury agreed there was nothing he could do but keep an eye on him. It was weighing on him.

The air was crisp and cold, and Steve and Nat were unzipping their jackets and pulling off hats as their eyes fell on Bucky’s desperate attempts to flirt with Peggy and Pepper.

“Oh, ecstatic huh?” Pepper ask, a sly look on her face.

“Phenomenally so,” Bucky replied.

“Bucky, leave them alone. They can do better.” Steve called out down the hallway.

“But they don’t know that yet, Steve.”

“I’ll save them the trouble.”

Bucky chuckled and winked at the two girls before sauntering over to Steve, pausing to examine Nat who stood silent.

“I know you,” he said finally after a moment.

“You do,” she said, a small grin forming on her face. “And Steve’s right, they can definitely do better.” She stood in front of a flabbergasted Bucky, serenely chewing on her bubblegum. She turned and gave Steve a half-hug. “Anyway, I’ve got to head back and study. Big test tomorrow.”

“Hey, Halloween party! I’ll make sure Steve tells you all the info.”

“I know the info already.”

“Then I’ll see you there.”

She hummed in vague assent before heading back down to her room on the 1st floor.

“Bye Nat!” Steve called down the stairs. He clapped Bucky on the shoulder and they walked down the hall to Steve’s room. Chatting as he opened the door, and gathered his things for the City in the Woods Press weekly meeting. “So how do you know her?”

“I can’t put a pin on it!”

“But she’s apparently coming to your guy’s Halloween party?”

“The more the merrier. And I got a lot done while you were meeting with the scary man.”

“You mean Fury?”

“He’s so scary, dude.”

“What did you get done?”

“I invited _everybody_! I am done for the day, I am an accomplished adult. Basically your whole floor here is going, except the freshmen, because they’re wee babes and need to be protected from the likes of us. Plus I talked to the ladies’ rugby team, and they’re all going too.”

“The rugby team?”

“Hey, hey, they’re burly, but beautiful. And they’re all dressing up as Amazons, and I for one, am delighted. I love group costumes!”

Steve snorted, riffling through his notebooks. He could have sworn he drew more comics and sketches for the meeting, but was coming up short. He was just so busy with schoolwork, and the monthly RA meeting with Fury had run long too, since he had to discus the event with Tony belaying out the window during the first week. Things were simultaneously settling down — there was no more belaying, but Tony had taken to walking around in the nude far more than was necessary — and winding up. All aspects of his life were picking up the pace. He had midterms and projects for his classes as well as events and parties and requirements for Guass House, Science Hill and the Pre-Med Frat (which he was sorely neglecting), and of course _poetry_ for his Poetry and Language class. He shuddered at the mere thought of it.

“You ready, dude? I can’t stay parked above your dorm forever. I don’t actually have an E-permit, and I saw the meter maid cruising around looking to make quota.”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess so.” Steve zipped up his backpack, and they walked out of his room, turning around to lock his door behind him.

“Thor, buddy. How you doing, man?” Bucky called out down the hall. Steve swung around and looked over to see Thor, but he was not his usual shining self. Steve realized he had not actually seen Thor in at least a few days at all, and the difference between then and now was a shock. Thor looked dull and worn down all over, hair ratty and wearing sweatpants and a grubby t-shirt. And looking tired, so, so tired. He was trudging back from the bathroom. He did not meet their eyes. “You alright, man? Thor? Hellooo?”

“Thor? Are you sick?” Steve asked. Thor shook his head. Steve saw that he had dark, black circles under his eyes as he passed Steve, opening the door to 301. Inside Steve could see the room was dark, the only light coming through the closed curtain of the window, casting a dull, diluted pall on the room. Steve peered in, and noticed on the floor there were a few glass bottles, but he could not see what they were before Thor closed the door behind him without a word.

“That was really weird,” Bucky said. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

He gently pulled Steve down the hall and to the stairs, headed towards Bucky’s car to drive to the other side of campus. All the while, Steve could not shake the image of dark, exhausted Thor retreating into the black dorm room.

 

 

Steve and Bucky darted into the press office just as the meeting was starting, sliding into two of the rolling chairs near the back. One of the new freshman handed them each a stapled packet of papers. Steve looked around, and saw that everyone was engrossed in their packet. The room was silent as all the students, and Professor Hill read. He finally noticed at the front of the room stood Tony Stark, looking surprisingly grim, despite his stupid facial hair.

“Now that everyone’s here,” Sam said, looking pointedly at Steve and Bucky. “What you have in your hands is a collection of emails between Provost Pierce, the University Board, and various higher administrative officials. These were collected by Tony here, who brought them to my attention earlier today. This is the next issue. If you were working on something already, drop it. We are going to do a full primer on these emails, and what it means for us, and for the future of the school.”

Steve opened the packet, and examined what seemed like completely innocuous emails at first. A few financial charts of money in and out of the departments. List after list, that almost made no sense unless you knew what to look for. Then there were just simple emails, quips about professors, suggestions to the charts. Finally there was a list: **Final Cuts for the Current Academic School Year:** _To be implemented at the start of Winter Quarter._

The list was arranged by the percentage each department would be cut. The Engineering Department was getting a 4% cut, Astrophysics 5%. Computer Sciences and Linguistics were both 7% Legal Studies was 10%. Biology was losing 35%. It kept getting worse and worse. History, Literature, Art, Philosophy and Political Science were all losing 50% or more of their funding. Premed was taking a 72% cut, and had an star next to it but before Steve could flip to the end and find out what it meant—

“Wait. What the hell does it mean if something’s getting a 100% cut?” Bucky asked.

Steve scanned to the bottom of the list, and saw at least ten departments with 100% cuts marked next to them including Sociology, Anthropology, Music, Religious Studies, Communications-Film, Communications-Public Relations and Communications-Journalism.

“They’re cutting Journalism?! They can’t fucking cut Journalism!”

Everyone in the Press Office started talking at once. All of them shouting to be heard above the others. Steve sat silent while the uproar raged around him. He was looking at the note for Premed. It said the whole department was essentially cut, but would have some Professors retained by the Biology Department. At first he thought he might be able to scrape by, but looking at the list of courses, and the professors left, he knew there was no hope. By the next quarter the professors and classes he needed to graduate with would be gone. He could try for a Biology major, but it still meant that he would not finish early like he planned. Steve could feel the bile coming up in his throat. The packet of papers shook in his trembling hands.

“Steve? You okay, bud?”

“Oh my god.”

Sam walked over and stood over Steve and Bucky. “Steve, man. Everything alright?”

“Oh my god.”

“Steve?”

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, ohmygodohmygodohmygod.” Steve grew more and more frantic, rocking back and forth in his chair. His stomach was churning inside of him, and his blood was pumping erratically through his veins. Everything he had worked for, everything he had given up, was suddenly moot, suddenly useless. He had to stay another year, which would mean another year of student loans that he could not pay. His mother was already swimming in debt, and now this? He could not even begin to process the information. It was all rushing at him like bats from a cave, flying towards his face in a flurry of confusion and noise and chaos.

“FUCK!” Steve screamed out loud, causing Sam and Bucky to jump and the others in the room to fall silent. “Oh my fucking god.” He dropped his head in his hands and fought back tears and tried to steady his breathing. Sam gave his shoulder a soft squeeze.

“Steve’s reaction is the right one,” Tony said, still standing in the front taking advantage of the lull in conversations. “This is bullshit. And keep reading. None of the board, none of the administration, or even Provost Pierce are getting no cuts. In fact, some of them are benefitting from this. Their Christmas bonuses are already in the system, I checked. They’re stealing from us, and leaving all of us out to dry. This is going to be announced in two weeks.”

“Unless we announce it first,” Sam said.

“Does anyone know you got this Tony?” Bucky asked.

“No. I’m pretty good at hacking. Didn’t leave any trail. I didn’t even mean to find _this_. I was just setting a bug to collect data in general. This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you.” 

“I want you guys to start researching,” Sam said. “Tony will help you dig around in the system without getting caught. We’ve got to be quiet about this but we need to know more. Find out which professors are getting fired, which classes are getting cut, and all the numbers. I want to know how many students will be effected in each department and how. The whole next issue is about this. Blowing this up. We’re printing Monday, it’s delivered and on campus Tuesday morning before the 8am classes.”

“It’s Thursday,” a student near the door said. “We usually have a whole week to get our regular issues out.”

“This isn’t a regular issue. We can’t wait, not for this. The longer we sit on this the less time we have to control the story and maybe make a difference.”

“What difference could this possibly make?” Bucky asked.

“We need to get the students angry. The sooner they know, the sooner the board will have to answer for itself. I bet you they’re preparing statements for when they release this information, but we’re not going to let them slide out of this. We do this quietly, and we do this right. We get all the info, we blow it up. We have to.”

Sam walked back and started talking with Tony, and the room filled with low murmurs as the other students broke up into groups and got to work. Conversations filled the air about legal issues, heads of departments, breakdown of students in the departments, freshman admitted for specific majors. But Steve sat, head still in his hands, not moving, trying not to even breath as the flurry raged around him. This could not be real. How was he going to tell his mother? How could he go to his classes and pretend nothing was wrong until the story was out? Was he really here for another year? All the various factors rushed around in his head, and he could not stop it. He was ready to explode. Bucky finally tapped him on the shoulder.

“You okay, man?”

“No,” Steve replied, not looking up. “I’m completely fucked.”

“Do you want a ride back to your dorm?”

“No.” Steve stood up, grabbing his bag. “I need to get out of here. I’ll walk.”

He headed out the door. “Steve!” Sam called out as he was leaving. “We’re going to need a comic for this. Something good.”

Steve waved his hand and began the long walk back to Science Hill. The cool, autumn air bit at his face, and he zipped up his jacket, and pulled up the hood before shoving his hands into his pockets. This helped, but did not stave off the night’s chill. He cut through one of the back paths through the forest to get back to his dorm, marching through the darkness, lost in his thoughts. His feet sank in the dirt ever so slightly, and his legs brushed up against scraggly bushes along the path. He finally had to pull out his phone and use it as a flashlight to light his way through the dark, and up the back side of Cardiac Hill. The trees stood ominously above him, black against a black sky. There was no moon that night, and Steve felt it was appropriate considering the circumstances. He passed by a large rock, and considered just sitting on it and never moving, and sobbing for the rest of his life. He didn’t though. He marched back up the hill, huffing clouds into the cold air and taking deep, icy breaths that hurt his lungs. He wanted to scream. He wanted to do something. He just kept walking, slowly freezing in the night.

 

 

He finally made it back into Guass House, and the fluorescent lights of the hallways were so bright they hurt his eyes. He trudged up the stairs, ready to just collapse onto his bed, when he looked down the hallway to see a tall, thin man in a black hooded coat over a dress suit standing outside his door, leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette, and cleaning his glasses on his shirt.

“Ah, you must be Steven Rogers,” said the man. He had a slight accent, but Steve could not place it. The man put his glasses back on his face and offered out his hand Steve shook it nodding, but did not say anything, waiting for the man to speak. He pulled his cigarette out of his mouth, and crushed it out in a small box he pulled from his pocket, and set the cigarette in, alongside several new, clean ones. “I’m actually here visiting, but I’m afraid we did not actually get to filling out the required visiter pass forms, and I would like to do that now.”

Steve looked the man up and down. He was well dressed; Steve guessed that the shirt the man wore probably cost more than Steve’s entire wardrobe. His dark, black hair was pulled back in a small ponytail, and his long green scarf stood out against his pale skin and dark clothes dramatically. Even in the awful light of the fluorescents he looked good. Steve squinted and saw that the frames of the man’s glasses read Burberry. Steve sighed. “Yeah, fine. No big deal, let me find the form.” He opened his door and flicked on the light as he and the tall man stepped inside. He rifled through his papers, before finding the one he was looking for, passing it to the man with a clipboard and pen. “I’ve just got to unpack my things, if you don’t mind filling it out.”

“Not at all. There’s a three day limit, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“I hope to be out of there before hand, but I'm not sure. I can get a hotel if need be. I’d rather stay close.”

“Who are you visiting?”

The man looked up at Steve, green eyes piercing, “My brother, Thor Odinson. I’m Loki.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ("I ain't gonna let no daughter of mine fool around with no Beta Reader. No sirreebob." — My Father, circa 1992).


	13. Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve does not actually figure out why Loki is here or what is wrong with Thor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Don't worry, things won't be all bad for Thor, nor will it last too long. I'll admit this is kind of a bump in the road from the normal stuff, and isn't that fun to read but it is important in the long run for Steve and Thor.  
> • Loki, unlike MCU Loki, is actually issue-free in this story. So that's good!

Steve tried not to pry, but he could not help but keep an eye on Thor and Loki after the latter’s mysterious arrival that weekend. It actually seemed like Loki was helping, even if Thor still looked miserable. Loki took the reins, and Steve saw him pushing Thor into the dining hall to eat, to the bathroom to shower and cleaning out Thor’s room, opening the curtains and throwing away the mysterious glass bottles. He took Thor out into town in his car, and came back with some fresh groceries and other supplies. Loki even went with Thor to all his classes, which Steve found out after bumping into them outside of Hahn Hall the day after Loki’s arrival. The overcast, October sky making Loki look more pale, and Thor just as pallid and unhealthy as when Steve saw him in the hallways.

“Loki, Thor.” Steve said, nodding at them as he passed, trying to keep his smile friendly. He was curious. But smart enough to know that he would probably never figure out what exactly was going on.

“Ah, Steven,” Loki replied airily. “Hello there. Isn’t this place magnificent in the fall? I had no idea. We were taking a walk through one of the wooded paths by the cafe, because I’ll be damned if I’m drinking dorm dining hall coffee. The leaves are just brilliant. Here, I thought it was all beachy, but this is certainly something else.”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Steve said. He did not take his eyes off Thor. Thor looked a little better, if Steve really studied him, but did not seem fine. There was just something off, and Steve could not figure out what it was. Something bad enough to warrant a trip from his brother, but what could it be?

“Well, we’ve got class,” Loki said, after a moment of silence as Steve tried to make eye contact with Thor. See the same Thor he had gone surfing with and sang in the shower with. He gave up and looked back at Loki, who was smiling, but it looked a little strained. “Advanced Semantics! A rare treat for me, I haven’t done much in terms of Linguistics. It was good to see you again, Steven.”

“It’s Steve.” Both Steve and Loki turned to look at Thor.

“What was that?”

“It’s Steve,” Thor said to his brother. “Not Steven.” His voice was hoarse, but at least he was saying something.

Loki looked like he was finally able to let out a breath that he had been holding a long time, and Steve could not help but feel the same. The strain on Loki’s face lifted just a little and he gave both Steve and Thor a genuine, albeit small smile. “Right, of course. Steve, I am sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Enjoy the class.”

 

Steve went about his day, but made a point of leaving his door open when he returned to the dorm that night, in the hopes of being able to catch a glimpse of Thor and Loki and find out what was going on. Steve was studying half-heartedly in the meantime. What was the point at this juncture? He would not be getting his pre-med degree, and he would not even be able to get a Biology degree until next year. He also could not even come up with a decent comic idea for the story release the next week.

He sighed, and heard the door to Thor’s room open. He tiptoed over to look in the hall, and saw Loki standing at the edge of the hall by the back stairs, making a call on his phone. Steve stepped back and did not want to listen, but at the same time could not really help himself.

“Yes, hello professor, I just sent off the write-up you asked for… I can correct anything here if you’d like, then ship it back to you… I don’t think I can leave just yet, he’s— he’s just a little worse than I thought… I was actually wondering if there was anyone you could recommend here to take a look at him… His medication just stopped working then he stopped taking because, well for obvious reasons… I’ve got him back on, but it’s only been two doses so far, and I’m not sure if it will do any—… Doctor Erskine, you say? …I will definitely check him out… Yes, no that’s very helpful thank you so much. I’m sorry I’m not there to keep working… thank you for being so patient with me… thank you. Goodbye.”

Steve knew Doctor, well, Professor Erskine. He was going to be Steve’s advisor for his comprehensive exams and senior thesis. He was not a practicing doctor as far as Steve knew. He taught many of the pre-med classes, but Steve could not recall what Erskine specialized in. He leaned back further into his room and sat down on his bed, letting out a slow, quiet breath, closing his eyes. He waited for Loki to go back into Thor’s room. He strained his ears for the sound of steps through the hall and the door opening and closing. Instead he heard a small cough at his doorframe.

“I’m assuming you heard all that,” said a low, accented voice at the door. Steve opened his eyes and saw pale Loki leaning on the doorframe, long and languid against the wood.

“Yeah, I’m just—“ _Snooping,_ his brain provided.

“What? What were just?”

“I’m just worried about Thor,” he replied finally. And he was; that was the niggling feeling that had stuck itself in the back of his mind these past few days. Even with everything going on with him, Steve realized that Thor’s sudden decline of health was what woke him up at three in the morning, wracked with worry.

Loki regarded him curiously. “Don’t be. I’ll see him better. This isn’t the worst episode he’s had.”

“Episode?”

“He’s very fond of you.”

“This happened so fast. He was fine a few weeks ago.” Steve knew he was not going to get much out of Loki. 

“And he will be fine again. Then he will be bad again. But then he will be fine once more. I will always make sure of that.”

“Yeah, but what if you’re not here?” Steve felt a small lump of anger in the back of his throat, but was still so in the dark that he could not make it manifest into anything more clear.

Loki stepped in Steve’s room and closed the door halfway behind him. “That is the thought that keeps me up at night. If I told you what was happening, would you keep your knowledge a secret? Even from Thor?”

Loki moved and sat at Steve’s computer desk, waiting for the answer. “He was so excited about coming here,” Loki said into the quiet. “He thought this was his fresh start. He had gone a year without an episode, he took all the classes to get into this Linguistics department. Then his first few weeks he would write me email after email about the antics on the floor, and the professors here, and you, of course.”

“Don’t tell me what’s wrong.” This was almost impossible for Steve to say. He actually wanted desperately to know what was wrong, but he couldn’t hear it this way. “If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.” Again, Loki’s face was curious. He blinked a few times before giving Steve a small smile.

“He was right about you.”

“What did he say about me?”

“That you’re good.”

Steve highly doubted that, but was not going to argue. “Stay here as long as you need. Screw the three-day limit.”

“Thank you, Steve.” And with that Loki stepped back out into the hall and back to room 301.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read? Is that a kind of fish?)


	14. The Comic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finally figures out what to do for the paper's special budget cut edition, and the atmosphere at UC Monterey takes a turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Again, this is a pretty extreme version of budget cuts. Pretend it's more realistic than it actually is.

It was Monday afternoon, and Steve was sitting in the City in the Woods Press office waiting for Sam. The entire weekend Sam was pestering Steve via text to come up with something on point and topical to put in the special Budget Cut issue of the paper. Steve tried, he really did. But there was nothing he could do. It was hopeless.

And if he was being perfectly honest, he was worried about Thor. He saw glimpses of him and Loki occasionally over the weekend, but not much. Maybe he should have let Loki tell him what was wrong. Maybe then he could have helped, instead of sitting in his room feigning studying for a teacher that might not even have a job come December. But he was looking over the information Tony had gathered, and realized he was still expected to fulfill his gen-ed requirements. He was doomed to a world where his poetry class was more of a priority than his physiology class. It was topsy-turvy and he hated it. If someone had told him he’d be worried about a tall, blond, broad linguistics major, and (god forbid) poetry, he would have laughed in their face.

However, that morning Thor looked a little brighter as Steve passed him and Loki outside of Hahn Hall, and Steve did not think he could feel as relieved as he did. Thor was still pale, but the circles under his eyes were not so dark, and his face not so tired. It was only a start, but it meant that the cloud that loomed above Thor would leave. Things could get better again.

Steve was in the press office now, and thinking back on that morning just sent another wave of relief through him.

“So what do you got for me, Steve?” Sam asked, walking into the office. Wave of relief: gone.

Steve sighed, waffling around with his notebook for a minute. “I- I don’t have much, Sam.”

Sam sighed too, sitting down next to Steve at the table. “I thought that might happen.”

“There’s just too much going on. This may not even be a good issue for a comic at all.”

“I’ve thought about that, man. I guess it just would have been nice.”

“I know.”

“There’s just nothing funny about this at all. A little break would have been good for readers.”

Steve did not reply. Sam had said something, and Steve was trying to figure out why it was sticking in his head. “Sorry, stop talking for a minute.” Steve was already scribbling in his notebook.

“I’ll come back later.”

Steve didn’t hear him. He finally knew what to draw for the comic. It clicked in his head; light-switched, lightning struck, apple drop perfection.

 

 

Steve had spent the night in the press office with Sam, Bucky, Tony and the others. They had ordered pizza and finished writing their articles in the wee hours of the morning, before turning on the press to start printing the papers. They slept in a pile on the one of the couches for a few hours. Steve sat in the middle, head falling back on the pillow behind him. Bucky was on one side of Steve, curled up under his chin like a puppy, and Sam was on the other, laying down with his head on Steve’s leg and his feet hanging off the edge of the couch. Steve was woken up in the middle of the night by a flash of light. His eyes landed on Nat, who was putting away her phone, and pulling up one of the rolling chairs, sitting in it and putting her feet up on the table with a smile.

“What’s up?” Steve whispered, not wanting to wake up exhausted Sam and Bucky. He tried to untangle himself, but the two other men clung harder and Steve was left trapped under their arms and legs.

“Don’t move, it’s fine,” Nat replied back, voice soft. “You just weren’t answering your phone. Whose the guy staying with Thor?”

“It’s Loki, Thor’s brother. I told him he could stay longer than the three days.”

“If Fury finds out, that’s not good.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

“What’s going on here? I thought the paper was out on Thursdays, not Tuesdays.”

“Special Edition. Read all about it tomorrow.”

“I’m sure it’s gonna be good.”

“That’s not quite the word.”

Nat was quiet a moment, spinning back and forth in her chair, while Steve tried to adjust himself into a more comfortable position. “Are things alright with Thor?” She finally asked. "I'm worried about him."

“I think they’re going to get better now that Loki’s here. You noticed it too?”

She nodded. “He’s taking Latin with me. He missed a few classes. He didn’t look so good when he finally showed up yesterday either. He couldn’t even conjugate like, an active present indicative verb, you know? Which is like, woah, what is up? You know what I mean?”

Steve stared at her. He did not know what she meant. He did not know the first thing about Latin. He only knew that Nat and Thor took it, but he just found that out a few second ago.

“I think our teacher kind of knew something was up, and stopped calling on him to translate. But like, we’re in midterm season, and we’ve got our second essay due soon. He chose the worst time to be falling behind on the readings. I was going to go talk to him about studying together, like hopefully he’ll absorb some stuff with osmosis, but then the other guy, Loki, said it might have to wait a little while. But like, there really is not a little while to wait. You cannot slack on the quarter system man. It just can’t happen, especially in Latin, especially with Professor Heimdal.”

Steve kept staring at her, slightly intimidated by what seemed like an impressive amount of work, worried about Thor all over again. He pulled his eyes away, leaning his head back to look at the dark, vaulted ceiling of the press office with a deep sigh. Bucky curled up closer to him, turning his head and peering at Nat.

“Hey. It's Girl-I-Know,” he said softly.

“Hey, Bucky,” she replied, giving him a little wave as she twisted in her chair. It didn’t matter, Bucky was back asleep against Steve’s chest.

“I think you should just firmly-slash-politely keep on top of Thor about Latin. I don’t know about his other classes, but maybe let Loki know about how fast the quarters go. He may not know. The last thing Thor needs is to flunk out.” _But would it even matter?_ Steve thought. The budget cuts weren't affecting his department that much, but it was going to be rough if the cuts went through.

“Yeah, that was kind of my idea. I just wanted to check in with you.”

“Why?”

“Because—“ she paused, looking at him with a strange expression. “Because he’s on your floor,” she said lamely. It was obvious that she was thinking something entirely different, but Steve did not have the mental energy to try and figure it out. “Your jurisdiction, I guess.”

“Well, I’ll take Thor in my jurisdiction, if you’ll handle Tony and the boys.”

“Not a problem. Bruce is wonderful, Tony’s a breeze and Clint is like a dumb puppy. I can handle it.” She stood up and picked up her bag from the floor. Steve tried to fish his phone out of his pocket, but could not get under Sam’s head without waking him. He sighed again.

“What time is it?”

“About 3:00.”

“In the morning?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you even doing up?”

“My major never sleeps. I had a drunk study session in the dorms nearby and figured I’d check if you were here.”

“Well, I think you should get some sleep.”

“Sure thing, dad.”

“Wait, are you drunk now?”

She walked by him giving his foot a little kick before she went, and grinning over her shoulder at him and the boys as she walked out the door in an impressively straight line for someone who may or may not be drunk. Steve was left with his thoughts, trapped under the limbs of his two friends. He was waffling between waking up fully and going back to sleep.

“Shhh,” Bucky’s hand reached up and swatted at Steve’s face. “You’re thinking too loud. Stawp.”

With that Steve closed his eyes and settled back down into the couch. There was no arguing with Bucky’s logic on this one.

 

 

The next morning the newspapers hit the stands and were dropped off at the dorm buildings like they normally would be. Then, for good measure, Sam saw to it that extra copies were littered around the lecture halls and classrooms, and scattered on dining hall tables and chairs. Everywhere you looked you saw the above-the-fold headline reading “School’s Out!” byline, “Provost Pierce to Leave No Department Un-Cut!” followed by the first article, detailing the amount of years it would take to graduate (much more than four), without the classes and teachers available after the cuts, and how much tuition the school would earn from the extra time students spent at the institution. Sam held nothing back. He had even paid for a courier to deliver a copy, wrapped in ribbon, to the Provost’s house at 5:30 in the morning, after the first printing.

Inside were dozens of stories, breaking down all the various ways the school would be affected by the cuts. Bucky and Tony had even unearthed evidence that there would be cuts to the campus workers; dozens of cafeteria servers, bus drivers and maintenance workers would be losing their jobs, along with the numerous of professors and lecturers. There were charts and graphs, exposés and essays, interviews with some of the professors who were on the outs with the administration and were sure they would be the first to go. Also there was a list of phone numbers and even some addresses of all the people who had organized the budget cuts; Sam was pulling no punches. 

And in the middle of all of it, second page in, on the right hand side was Steve’s one-panel comic. It showed Steve himself, hunched over his desk, head in his hands, trying to draw a comic. He was surrounded by crumpled papers and an overflowing trashcan. On the floor lay a stuffed Elie the Elephant Seal wearing the school’s Blue and Red sweatshirt. On his shelves were books with titles taken directly from his pre-med textbooks. 

The caption read: **_There is nothing funny about this._**

Steve thought, in retrospect, that it was probably not a really bright idea. There was nothing punny or witty about it. It did not have a smart punchline, or something insightful. But it was what everyone was really feeling. Bucky loved it. And more importantly, Sam loved it. He threatened to put it on the front page, but Professor Hill would not let him. Though, she was going to be out of a job if things went according to the Provost’s plan, so she could have probably been swayed. Steve made the final call, and told Sam to put the comic in its usual spot.

 

 

The next morning, classes began as usual, but ‘usual’ did not last long. He was in his biochem lab, after eating a quick bagel from the cafe near the press office, (“Because breakfast is important when you are trying to overthrow a school administration!” Sam had said, as he sipped his pumpkin spice latte, with Bucky twiddling on his phone ignoring his large cup of mocha), when his phone chirped in his pocket.

“Im meeting with prof hill, tony and provost pierce right now.” said the text from Sam.

“Holy crap,” Steve replied. He didn’t know what else to say. He sat in his chair, pretending to be paying attention to the lab he was working on, but could not bring himself to care. He was mentally willing his phone to chime again, another text from Sam, Bucky, Tony, anyone. He put his phone on the counter. He did not even care if his TA saw. Glancing at the TA, it did not look like she even cared about his texting. She herself was texting someone, and going back and forth between the City in the Woods Press special edition and her phone. Steve realized she was part of the Bioinformatics department and would be receiving her MS at the end of the year if everything went according to plan. Correction; she _was_ _supposed to be receiving_ her Masters degree. With the cuts to the Biology Department, it did not seem likely. Steve felt sorry for her. He was in the same, panicked, rocking boat last Thursday, as she was now.

*pling!* Another text from Sam. Steve tossed his pipette back onto the counter, and started to read. “Pierce threatened expulsion. Tony did not move from seat before sending a text. The next minute, someone called pierce’s private line. Pierce talking now.”

*pling!* “It’s tonys lawyer.”

*pling!* “It’s tonys lawyers entire law firm.”

*pling!* “Omg, pierce is pissed. We’re off the hook. We’re walking away. This is insane.”

*pling!* “This is fucking nuts. Tonys got enough lawyers for the entire press corps. We’re discussing everythign now. Ttfn.”

Steve read the texts, trying to stay calm. He did not consider expulsion as an option. His stomach churned inside of him. This got so massive so quickly. He looked around the lab and saw that all the students in the room were looking at him, drawn by the text-tones from Sam’s continuous stream of messages. Even his TA was watching him. The lab was forgotten. Steve sighed, standing up and packing his things and cleaning up his lab equipment. His TA and the other students started doing the same thing.

“What’s going on, Steve?” she asked him over the din of the other students.

“The Editor in Chief, our Journalism Professor and the student who was responsible for the finding the emails about the cuts in the first place—“

“Tony Stark?” a student asked, and things started getting quiet around him.

“Yeah, Tony Stark. They had a meeting with Provost Pierce, who threatened to expel them. Tony called his lawyers who got Pierce to back off for now, but I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“What do we do?”

Steve looked around at the students. They looked back, expectantly, waiting for him to answer, as if he had some authority, some knowledge, some right to do so that they did not have. “I don’t know, for sure. But what I’m doing is staying angry. I have given the last three years of my life to this place, and I thought it would work out. I was told that everything would work out. I was lied to, and so were all of you, if this goes through. You’ve read the paper by now, things are really bad. And if the administration has the audacity to- to- ugh- to do _this_ to us in the first place I think they might try and keep at it, even now that we already know. The budget cuts still haven’t been cancelled. So stay angry! Stand up and scream it. Stay angry until it is guaranteed _in writing_ that these changes will not be implemented. Demand that this not go through. Go to the admin buildings, refuse to pay tuition, do whatever it takes to keep the attention of the Provost and administration. Don’t let this happen. Stay angry.”Steve started heading towards the exit when his TA called out to him. “Is that your comic in the paper?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s perfect. Keep it up.”

Steve nodded, and headed out the door. He felt his body surging with unexpected adrenaline. He was angry, he realized, it was not just something to say to make the other students feel better. He took a deep breath, and headed out of the building into the chilly October morning, happy he contributed some small thing to the cause, (if you could even call it that). _If only Thor had seen me say all that_ , he thought to himself. _That would have been great._ His breath puffed out in a cloud ahead of him and he hitched his backpack up and started to trek back to his dorm.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read? I've already been vaccinated for that, thanks though).


	15. Going Viral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finds out he's a prominent voice in the movement against the budget cuts, but really is fine just being a college student.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Short-ish, kind of choppy chapter. Mea culpa.

Steve went down to his Poetry and Language class on the west side of campus later that afternoon. People were still pouring over the paper. Things were simultaneously more subdued and chaotic as Steve made his way to class. A few people he had taken classes with previous waved at him and pointed to the comic. But then other people started waving at him too, people he didn’t know. It was strange, but he brushed it off as he walked into the building and through the hall to his class. He sat down, and opened his computer, waiting for the class to start and reviewing notes for his Physio test the next day. So far there was no reason to think the test was not going to happen, despite the fact that the professor giving it could potentially be fired by the end of the quarter.

“Friends, I’m sure you’ve all read the papers,” Professor Coulson walked in, uncharacteristically brisk, setting his bag on the table. “I was considering not holding classes, but I felt, given the circumstances, you should all know what is going on in the linguistics department. It is very bad, to say the least.”

“I thought you were only getting a 7% cut?” Steve asked.

“Yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that. The cut is to be made to our two labs, where we do voice recordings, and various phonology tests and experiments. 7% of our budget goes to keeping the electricity on in there, which is vital to keeping it functioning. However, it is used by all of the professors, staff, TAs and students for their work and experiments. It is the lifeline of our department. Without it, we’re done.” 

Steve pulled out his phone, and began texting Bucky what Professor Coulson was telling them. 

“We all know about the general mood on campus to do everything to make sure this doesn’t pass, there are no guarantees. I have volunteered to step down and resign in order for the money I make to go to funding the lab, if it comes to it.” The students around Steve began to protest. “No, no, it’s the best thing for the department. I can always find another job, but the Elephant Seal Linguistics Lab is important for all the future generations that come through here. But that being said, we are all going to be fighting to keep the budget cuts from happening, and I want to encourage you all to do the same. Steve’s already done something, so good for him.”

“Wait. What?”

“Your comic, your speech? These are important things that everyone needs to see.”

“What speech?”

“The one you gave this morning. It’s online. ‘Stay Angry, UCM’? It’s gotten a lot of hits.”

Steve opened a new browser window and was about to search for the video when his email server pinged. “Have you seen this?” said the subject line from Nat. Inside was a video link, and he knew what it was when he clicked it.

 _“I don’t know, for sure. But what I’m doing is staying angry. I have given the last three years of my life to this place, and I thought it would work out.”_ Steve looked and saw himself, standing at his spot in the biochem lab. Someone had been filming him on their phone. You could see the blurry outline of the backpack that was hiding the student’s intent on one side of the video.

“Are you kidding me?”

“It’s really quite inspiring. I saw it this morning with my wife, Lola, as I was getting ready to head into the meeting. Good stuff. Excellent use of rhetoric; approachable, but authoritative, passionate but staid. But I digress.”

“I didn’t know anyone was filming me.”

“Well, it was really good,” said the girl sitting behind Steve. “We were watching it in the Kappa Tau Lamda House before class. It made one of the girls cry.”

“Someone cried?!” Steve was exasperated. Flummoxed even.

“Well listen. I don’t think we’re going to have a productive class today, so I’m letting you all go early, I just wanted to address you all and give you some guidance. Steve said it best: Stay angry. Myself and a lot of the other professors are from a different era, and let me tell you this will not go down without a fight. We’ll take to the streets before we put your education in jeopardy. Now tonight, there is a massive faculty meeting discussing the cuts. No students allowed. I’ll be there, and I’ll be fighting. And I’ll be angry. No homework! Call the administration! See you next class!”

He left, grabbing his bag with flourish, and Steve was oddly inspired. He shuffled out with the other students, who murmured congratulations about his comic and speech. It was surreal. Steve thanked them awkwardly and headed back towards the dorm, because there was not much else he could do. Just like his walk to class people waved at him as he passed; he was blushing the whole way back.

 

 

When he finally made it back into Guass House, he walked up the stairs and got to the end of the third floor hall when he was greeted by a group of students. There in front of his door stood a few of his freshman, Peggy and Pepper, Tony, Clint and Bruce, Nat, and last but not least, Loki and Thor.

“Hi guys,” he said uncertainly.

“We saw your speech!” Pepper said, hands clasped together.

“It wasn’t really a speech.”

“It was! And it was brilliant,” said Peggy.

“We want to take you out to dinner! All of us. Well, except the freshmen. They want to come but they have their core class.”

Steve looked at the others, smiling expectantly at him. He looked over the heads of the others and locked eyes with Thor. The tall, blond, broad man still looked so tired, but he met Steve’s glance with a small, soft smile. Steve grinned. “I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more.”

 

 

That was how Steve found himself standing at the bus stop with the eight other upperclassmen as the evening fell softly down on the October air. The shadows were stretching out beside them, long and dark, and the leaves from the trees were falling, orange yellow and green. The weather was not as cold as it had been, but as the sun set it was slowly growing cooler. They stood shoulder to shoulder chatting in a circle. Steve did not know how it happened, but he ended up standing next to Thor, who was quiet but warm at his side, smiling that same soft, tired smile whenever he met eyes with Steve.

“Steve, I gotta hand it to ya, I did not think you had that kind of chutzpah in you.” Tony said, looking up from his phone as he texted Bucky and Sam to join them downtown.

“I didn’t think I was being filmed. If I had known, it probably would have been different.”

“Different how?” Loki asked.

“Different as in, it never would have happened because I cannot under any circumstances string a sentence together while on camera.”

The others chuckled.

“And the comic in the newspaper. That was yours too?” Loki asked.

“Yeah, but that’s nothing. I usually can come up with something funnier.”

“I don’t think funny is what was needed. I thought it was quite on-point.”

“It must be interesting for you,” said Nat. “As an outsider, I mean. Both of you really, Thor’s a transfer, and you are from god knows where.”

“It is, we’re both very intrigued by it all. And it’s only the first day. I’m wondering how things will pan out.”

“Hopefully well,” Bruce said over Clint’s head. He was tangled up in the other man’s limbs, who was trying to use the pocket’s of Bruce’s hoodie to keep his own hands warm.

“Yeah,” added Clint. “There’s no way I can afford more than my four years.”

They grew quiet again, the uncertain future looming over their heads as the stood waiting for the bus. It was growing colder, and they huddled closer together to stave off the chill. Steve did not try and think about the fact that he was shoulder to shoulder with Thor. He could feel the man’s body heat seeping through his jacket, causing him to shiver.

“You cold, Steve?” said Bruce on his other side, with Clint curled up almost completely inside Clint’s jacket. “I’d let you in, but I think there’s no room.”

“Oh no, I’m fine, Bruce.”

“Thor, bunch up closer to Steve, he looks like he’s freezing.” Loki said, shoving his brother towards Steve, sounding both bored and mischievous. Steve made a mental note to ask him how he pulled that tone off before he was distracted by Thor’s arm coming up around his shoulder, wrapping around him like a great wave. Steve tensed up a little, before relaxing into the larger man’s arm and shoulder. _This was warmer,_ he thought to himself. _I’m doing this because I’m cold._ But as he breathed in and inhaled Thor’s scent he realized that this was possibly the nicest thing to have happened to him since he started at UCM. He felt a blush rise up on his cheeks, but pretended not to care, continuing the conversation with the others. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nat pull out her phone and heard the quiet shutter click as she snapped a photo of him and Thor. He was about to say something when she started talking.

“Okay guys, stand together, I want to get this, everybody in.” She got another person standing at the bus stop to take a picture of all nine of them, and they stood together, tight like sardines making goofy faces at the camera. As they posed, Steve was pressed even closer into Thor, and the heard the unmistakable sound of a chuckle rising from Thor’s chest as they stuck out their tongues and crossed their eyes for the photos. Steve felt a great warmth rush through him as they all giggled and joshed around.

The bus came, and they untangled themselves, but Thor stuck close and they sat together with Loki next to them and the others scattered around them at the back of the bus. They all talked about coming up with a group Halloween costume, and were tossing ideas around, but Steve did not hear them.

All he heard was the occasional chuckle from Thor, and the rush of air outside the window as they drove by. He leaned his head on the glass and vaguely listened to the conversation. Even with everything going on, their uncertain futures, their uncertain lives, Steve was, for the first time in a long time, really, truly happy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read twice a day for maximum correctness. There are many unforeseen side effects to Beta Read, and should not be taken without consulting your physician).


	16. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Thor and the others go to Bucky and Sam's Halloween party. It's pretty spooky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Super long chapter! I hope you enjoy!  
> • This was going to be them just going to a party and there being party drama, but instead you got this. Much better anyway.  
> • I don't think I'll get Thor's version of events in time for Halloween, but at least one POV is pretty good, right?  
> • It was much harder coming up with the 1940's costumes than it should have been. I was playing off of Steve in the first Captain America movie, and it was so hard coming up with everything for the others.

_“And, due to numerous reasons, we the administration including Provost Pierce, have decided to postpone the proposed budget cut plan indefinitely.”_

Sam read the words out loud during the City in the Woods Press meeting. It had been a few weeks since the release of the leaked information, several meetings with Tony’s lawyers, and more than enough sleepless nights worrying about the future, but here was Sam telling them that they had done the right thing. The students in the press room cheered as Sam finished reading taking a dramatic bow at the front of the room. 

“That email has been sent out to all the students, and we will be publishing it, with some extra notes, in our next paper coming out next Thursday. Well done, everyone!”

“And to celebrate you’re all invited to Sam and my ‘Halloween Bonanza/No Budget Cuts Party of the Century this Friday!’” Bucky added.

“I thought we were already invited to that?” asked one of the students.

“Yes, but I uninvited you, because I don’t like your sass, missy.”

“But you’re re-invited!” Sam said quickly. “You’re all welcome to come! We haven’t had a Friday Halloween in years, so we’ve got to milk it for all its worth! We’re going to be ready to go and handing out candy in the evening, and not going to sleep until the next day. Come any time between then, and you’ll be golden.”

“You can actually come to our place whenever, we really don’t care.”

“It’s true. Okay! Short meeting! We brought some ‘thank god the budget cut thing isn’t happening’ cookies, eat up! Head back to where ever you’re from, we will see you Friday night!”

Everyone gathered up their things, and broke off into groups, or started heading out the door. Steve was packing his laptop back into his bag, and zipping up his jacket when Sam and Bucky sauntered over to him with shit-eating grins.

“You’re coming right?” Sam asked. “Or do you need to study? Especially now that your major isn’t cut!”

“No I’m coming. It’s a Friday; I can swing it. Got the whole floor coming as well.”

“Including Thor? And his angry nipples?” Bucky asked, waggling his eyebrows lewdly. Sam shoved him into a chair, but looked at Steve expectantly, waiting for his answer. Bucky saw a bowl of candy on the table, and started digging in while Sam and Steve continued talking.

“I think so, and his brother too. He offered to drive.”

“What are you dressing up as?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Howcan you not know?”

“Peggy and Pepper met up with Bruce, Tony and Clint and they decided our theme. Tony offered to get the costumes, so I’m just going to wear what they put me in.”

“That sounds dangerous.” Bucky said through a mouth full of chocolate.

“I think it’ll be alright. I trust the girls.”

“Well man, I’m sure it’ll be sick.” Sam said.

“I’m so excited!” said Bucky as he put another piece of candy in his already full mouth. “I luff group cofftumes!”

“Bucky, stop eating the candy. That’s for the hard workers of the press office.”

“Ah’m a hard wurker.”

“Well, I’ll see you then, guys.” Steve said standing up, getting ready to head back to the dorms.

“Yeah later, man.”

 

 

Steve was not exactly sure how it happened, but the evening of the 31st, he was sitting on a chair in the bathroom and Clint was running a wet comb through Steve’s hair, trying to tame Steve’s carelessly haphazard look (which, admittedly came from him not caring about his hair all that much). Steve tried to protest, but Clint had taken out his hearing aids saying, “I don’t want to get hair gel on them,” and leaving Steve with no choice but to sit and wait. He was also stuck staring at a row of mystery clothes hanging along a pipe against the wall of the bathroom, wrapped in plastic. Bruce and Tony were combing their hair and shaving respectively in the mirror, and did not offer to save poor Steve.

“Which one’s mine?” Steve finally asked, nodding at the hangers, before Clint grabbed his head to hold it still.

“Second one on the right.” Tony said unhelpfully, not taking his eyes off his reflection, blowing himself a little kiss.

“You’re an army captain,” Bruce supplied.

“What’s everyone else going as?”

“I’m an army doctor, but in my dress uniform like you. Clint is famous double agent and spy Eddie Chapman, and Tony is… what are you again, Tony?”

“I am just a simple infantry army clerk and writer for the military newspaper, whose name is Hugh Hefner.”

“Oh my god,” Steve said turning to face him. “That cannot be true!” Clint grabbed his head once more and jerked hit back to forward.

“I took a history class. I know my facts.”

“Are you getting rid of the goatee?”

“It’s not a goatee, it just grows like this naturally—“ Bruce snorted. “—and no, I don’t think the mighty Hef would want that. I think if he could have back in the 40’s, he would have loved to have such a magnificent facial ensemble.”

“Wait, these are 40’s costumes?”

“Yeah, we’re all going as World War Two people. That’s our theme.”

“You should see the girls,” Bruce said, pulling off his shirt and walking over to the hangers. “They look really good.”

Steve was about to ask about Thor and Loki (who was still here, but was planning on heading out after the Halloween party), when Clint slapped him on the back with a gruff “You’re done.” Tony gleefully ran over to the chair and pushed Steve out, and Clint started running the comb through Tony’s wild hair. Tony signed the one word he knew to Clint after pointing to his hair; “Sexy.” And Clint nodded and got to work. Bruce started pulling the plastic off the costumes, and Steve let out a low whistle.

“Jeez, these are really nice looking.”

“Yes they are,” Tony replied.

“I’m not sure if I can—“

“You can, don’t worry. If there’s one thing I love it’s providing high end replica costumes to my dear friends.”

Steve did not know what to say to that. If he was honest he still felt guilty about their first interaction, screaming in room 305 until Steve cracked. And Steve was pretty sure that these costumes cost more money than Steve had ever had at any given time. He just sighed, “Thanks Tony.”

“You’re welcome, Stevie.”

It was a struggle getting the uniforms on all of them. There were dozens of buttons, and belts and Clint was wearing a three piece suit, and did not know what to tuck into what. Clint also still had his hearing aids on the counter, so it was extra confusing as Bruce had to translate everything the others were trying to say to Clint into sign language. What felt like years later, they finally stood in front of the long bathroom mirror, looking not too shabby.

“Crap, Rogers,” Clint said, putting the hearing aids in. “You look hot.”

Steve tried not to blush, but the flush came up on his cheeks anyway. He did not want to say that Clint was right, but he was not wrong either. The dark brown-green, tailored jacket, the combed hair, the tie; it all worked in his favor. He was a little impressed, to say the least. But they all looked good. Bruce had on a uniform similar to Steve’s, and Tony had leaned more towards an infantry look, smearing a little bit of brown makeup on his face looking like he just came out from the beaches.

“I could say the same about you, Clint,” Steve replied, admiring Clint’s three piece suit. Clint had slicked his hair back and had drawn on a small mustache, and looked very much like a 40’s spy.

“Oooh, detail pieces!” Tony cried out, reaching into his backpack. He pulled out a ziplock bag with, well, props. He gave Clint a pocket chain, which Clint looped through his buttonhole. For Bruce he pulled out a white, cloth armband with a red cross inside of it. And for himself he had a replica military newspaper. Finally, he handed Steve a heavy, brass compass, with beautiful engraving along the top. Steve was impressed. It was gorgeous. It looked like it could hold a photo inside, but right now it was empty.

From outside, Steve could hear Peggy, Pepper and Nat chatting, and calling the boys out from the bathroom. As Clint and Bruce headed out, Tony leaned in to Steve’s ear and said “Stick a picture of Thor in there, maybe?”

Steve choked, and froze in his steps, before Tony pulled him out and pretended like nothing had happened, and they walked into the hallway. All three of the girls screamed out as they saw Steve and Tony.

“Ooh! You look so good!” 

“Definitely born in the wrong era!”

“Jeesh, I could say the same for you. You all look great.”

And they really did. Pepper was dressed up as Rosie the Riveter, though Steve did not remember Rosie wearing her shirt tied up over her waist. At the same time, Steve thought if he had a stomach that looked like Pepper’s he would probably wear his shirt like that too. Peggy was dressed in an outfit similar to Steve’s, but wearing bright red lipstick and perfectly coiffed victory curls. Then there was Nat who wore a slinky red, body-hugging dress. Steve was afraid to even look, because there was something just plain obscene about how perfectly it rode her curves, and he was a gentleman. But he looked anyway, because he was also human, and she was a perfect 40’s bombshell. Steve tapped under Clint’s chin, and he pulled his open jaw up off the floor. Nat pulled a puff on her fake cigarette holder with a fierce grin.

“Who are you supposed to be?”

“Claire Phillips. AKA ‘High Pockets.’ She ran a spy-ring in Manilla from her nightclub during the war.”

“You’re supposed to be a spy?”

With a deft hand, Nat pulled out a knife, hidden in her glove, and in one swift movement had it at Steve’s throat. “Damn right, soldier.”

“Holy fuck, Nat.” Tony said.

“Oh gosh. Don’t worry, it’s not real. It’s a letter opener.”

“Shall we head down?” said a voice behind them.

At the other end of the hall stood Thor and Loki, dressed as World War Two Pilots, complete with matching leather coats, white scarves over their ties, and uniform caps. Loki held his hat in his hand, but Thor had his tipped jauntily over his long hair, which was pulled back in a pony tail. 

The girls screamed again when they saw the two brothers, rushing over to admire their costumes. Steve and the others followed them, chatting amongst themselves. When Steve made it to Thor, he sent up a small prayer in thanks that Tony got tailored costumes, because it fit the taller man perfectly. It fit him so well that Steve had no troubles flashing back to the day he ran into Thor’s bare chest and the night he saw Thor in his tight, black, briefs.

“Wait, photo!” Nat cried out. She was about to take it herself when two of the freshmen, Tim and Jim, walked by, dressed as zombies. Nat had Tim take it and they all squeezed together in the narrow hallway, to take the picture. Then a picture with silly faces. Then a ‘very serious’ picture where they all pretended they were 1940’s soldiers and pilots and spies for good measure.

“Alright, let’s get going!” Tony said, clapping his hands and darting down the stairs, with Clint and Pepper close behind. 

 

 

They crammed into Loki’s Crosstrek. It seated five, and they were nine, so it was an adventure just getting in the car to say the least. Thor, Steve and Bruce sat in the back seat, since they were the biggest, and had Peggy, Pepper and Nat sit on top of them. Steve was distracted enough by the screaming girls on their laps to pretend not to notice that his thigh was flush with Thor’s as he sat in the middle of the car. Loki was driving, and somehow Clint wrangled his way into the front seat by himself, even though he did not have any more idea where they were going than Loki did. Tony sat in the hatchback. The girls squealed loudly and ducked into Steve, Thor and Bruce’s chests as they drove by the security kiosk on their way out, afraid that the guard would ticket them for putting too many people in the car.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Steve heard Loki murmur from the front. Thor reached out and gave his brother a comforting pat on the shoulder.

Steve turned and looked back at him at one point during the drive, and was greeted with a maniacal grin, illuminated only by the headlights of passing cars, his goatee harsh against his pale face. Steve nearly jumped out of his pants.

“Hello Clarice,” he hissed in Steve’s ear, flicking his tongue at Steve’s ear.

“You tit-head,” Nat said from Steve’s lap, leaning over and whacking Tony upside the head. In doing so however, she pressed her entire chest in Steve’s face, which was even more horrifying than Tony could ever be. Nat’s breasts were just too amazing for Steve to be that close to. He pulled his head back and tried to look away only to meet Thor’s eyes, who snorted at Steve, shaking his head.

“How much longer?” Steve asked, voice unusually high, grateful for the dark, which hid his deep blush.

“We should be here, but there are no lights on. Are you sure this is the right address?”

Steve peered out from the middle seat, trying to see through the window. There was Bucky and Sam’s house, and their cars were parked out front, but it looked deserted. They all got out, unloading like a clown car onto the sidewalk. It was quiet. Too late for trick or treaters to be out still. The night sat heavily, and the large house loomed ominously in front of them.

“What is going on?” Steve asked into the night.

 

 

“Hello? Bucky? Sam?” Steve pushed open the door, and took a tentative step in, followed by the others in a great clump. “Guys?” It was dark, and Steve thought he heard… _something_. But he couldn’t quite hear anything really. He squinted in the pitch black of the entryway, hand fumbling for the light switch.

“It doesn’t look like they’re here,” Nat said, distracting Steve from the noise.

“They invited everyone here though. There’s no way they wouldn’t be here.” He found the switch and flicked it on. But it stayed dark. He tried a few more times, but the light was broken. “What the heck?”

“Did you try the light?” Clint asked, before Pepper touched his shoulder and pointed to Steve’s hand still fiddling with the switch. “Oh.”

“Shhh!” Bruce hissed. He heard the noise again. A low moan from deep within the house.

“Bucky? Is that you?”

“Steve, they’re not here,” Peggy said at Steve’s side.

But again, ten times louder: the moan. The deep, grumbling, angry moan. Pepper yelped and leapt into Bruce’s arms as Tony yelped and leapt into hers. Loki looked bored in the back of the group, while Nat was grinning looking around for the source. Thor moved forward towards Steve and Peggy, standing at Steve’s shoulder, ears tilted towards the inside of the house. Clint did not hear the noise.

As a group they took a few, cautious steps forward.

Bang!

The door had shut itself behind them, pitching the nine of them into total darkness. Someone let out a high pitched scream (it was Tony), as they clumped together, holding on to each other in the dark. Steve was in the front, and felt multiple hands clutching at his arms and waist. He took a step forward.

“No! Don’t leave!” Bruce said. “Then they’ll cling to me!”

“Look, a light!”

They all looked and saw, at the top of the stairs there was a soft, glowing orange light. They all took a step towards it, but then someone in the middle pulled them violently back, scrambling to keep them all in a tight-knit clump.

“That’s what they want us to do!!” Tony said, voice an octave too high.

“Who’s they!?” Steve hissed back.

“THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US!” Tony’s face was illuminated by the little orange light, and he looked grim.

“Look, you can wait out in the car if yo—“ Thor started.

“I’M NOT GOING OUT THERE ALONE.” Tony cried.

“I’m not letting that madman into my car alone,” Loki said from the back.

“I’ll go with him!” Pepper said.

“No, we go together as a group up the stairs, or we leave as a group.”

“Where’s the party?” Clint asked. Steve looked and saw that he was fiddling with his hearing aids, but could not tell if he was taking them out or putting them in. Steve let out an exasperated sigh, and started walking towards the stairs. He felt Thor at his side, following him, and soon the rest of the clump was behind them. Steve’s heart was pounding, though he was not sure if it was from the adrenaline or from Thor walking right next to him, brushing every now and then against Steve’s arm with his own.

Another loud moan. Another screech from the group. This time it was Tony and Pepper and Peggy, yelping as one and jumping into the air, reaching over and clutching and Bruce, Steve and Thor.

“We’re just going up the stairs. Okay, guys?” Thor said in his low, calm timbre.

The others murmured their assent, and they began the climb. Something brushed against Steve’s leg and he jumped, toppling into Thor’s broad chest.

“You okay?” he asked

“I think something touched my leg,” Steve replied.

“Ah! Something touched mine too!” Said Bruce.

Someone shrieked again, probably Tony, but potentially Pepper. Soon, everyone was stumbling up the stairs and running into the hallway. “What is going on!?” Pepper cried out.

They looked out into the dark hall and saw that there was a string of eerie, green lights illuminating a path towards the back of the building. Then the moan once more! Loud this time, sounding close. Steve jumped once more as the air filled with smoke around them, blocking the view for a moment.

A cold hand touched his face and that was when Steve screamed.

He turned to run and barreled right into Thor’s chest, making the man grunt out in pain, and they began stumbling over, before Peggy, Pepper and Nat pushed them back up to standing. The doors started slamming open and shut along the hallway. Steve was sure all nine of them were yelling. The lights around them started strobing. A high pitched scream from somewhere in the house sent a chill down his spine. Then there was a dark, malicious laugh.

“Let’s get out of here,” Steve cried out, about to head back to the stairs.

“No wait!” Loki said from the back of the group.

They turned and looked but they couldn’t see the stairs, it was all smoke. Then suddenly a figure, covered in a black cloak. It was crawling up, up, up the stairs, slowly gaining closer and closer to them. It reached out a hand towards Loki, but it was not a hand, it was skeletal and pale. The figure looked up at them from the stairs, and there was nothing where its face should be. Except, in the flashing green light, Steve could make out teeth, and deep, dark holes for eyes.

Nat screamed. It was the first time he heard her since they entered the house, and it set Steve’s hair on edge even more so than anything else.

“Run!” someone cried out. And with a great push, Steve found himself leading the pack through the hallway with the slamming doors, not quite sure where he was going, path lit only by the eerie green light on the floor. He pushed through the end, and opened the door.

Flash! Another skeleton jumped out at them! They all screamed, and Steve fumbled for the door to the backstairs, and they rushed down, tumbling and fumbling down the stairs. _Kitchen, dining room, den, porch, back door, out around the house, into the car._ Steve mapped out the path in his head, grabbing on to the first hand he could reach and pulling them along behind him. They reached the kitchen and—

 

 

“Surprise!”

The lights were on, and there stood Bucky and Sam along with possibly half the school waiting for them at the bottom. There were beers, and a few kids were playing pool in the den, and everyone was in costume and having a grand old time. There was a TV that was cycling pictures from the upstairs hall; face after face of people screaming and jumping away from the skeleton.

Steve let out a breath, as he and the others stood at the foot of the stairs, panting.

“Well come on in! Party time!” Bucky said, holding out a few open beers.

Steve looked down and realized that the hand he had grabbed was Thor’s and he quickly released it, snatching the beer and taking a large swig. Slowly the others broke apart, and joined the party, but Steve stayed where he was, panting slightly in the doorway. Thor stood next to him, warm and tall at his side. They finally looked at each other before dissolving into giggles, fueled by adrenaline. They were laughing still as they stepped into the kitchen, and found Bucky and Sam who were laughing at them, and grabbing the remote to skip back to the snapshot picture of them in the haunted house. 

 

 

“Well, Rogers. That was fun.” Loki said, draping himself over Steve and Thor’s shoulders, after a little while. “A good send off.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. And alas, I must. This was my final hoorah before I go back to Berkeley. Graduate school can only wait so long?”

“Wait, how are you in graduate school if you’re Thor’s younger brother?”

“I took a little time off from schooling before transferring,” Thor said not quite looking at Steve, sipping on his water.

“Well, how old are you?”

“Isn’t that in your RA roster?” Loki asked, voice slightly slurred.

“I’m 26,” Thor said over Loki.

Steve was taken slightly aback. He did not realize that Thor was five years older than he was. He peered at the man in front of him, and wondered if that made any difference. The thought of it shook him. Were those smiles patronizing? Was Thor just trying to be an encouraging adult figure in Steve’s life? Did he feel the way Steve thought he had felt. What kind of 26 year old would act and feel the way Steve hoped Thor was acting and feeling.

He took anther swig of his beer. Loki and Thor were chatting away, and watching Clint and Tony who had begun a sword fight with some of the pool cues. Steve laughed along with them, and tried to shake away the niggling feeling the back of his mind. It was Halloween after all. And Thor did not let go of Steve’s hand when they finished the haunted house. Steve was the one to let go. Maybe Thor wanted to hold on a little bit longer…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta read? Too spooky).


	17. First Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve comes to a realization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • 'Sealbux' is my stupid way of trying to come up with campus currency. I had something similar during my time at school. IDK man.  
> • FIRST RAIN: Actual UCSC tradition, sacred and honorable. Complete with naked throngs of people starting from one end of campus and then going all the way down to the pool and jumping in. It's... interesting.

“Listen, I just don’t think things are over yet. It just felt a little too easy.” Bucky said during lunch. They sat at one of the school eateries on the west side of campus which had the best fries in the school. Steve sat with Bucky and Sam as they bickered across him, munching on his fries quietly, Physio book in his lap. Bucky took a massive bite of his massive burger. “Sumfing’s up. Ah know it.”

“Man, shut up. You’re acting like a bad action movie. _It’s quiet. Too quiet…_ We exposed the massive, completely immoral and deceitful budget cut cover up, what can they do now? They know we’ve got an eye on them, and lawyers from Tony.”

“I just, I don’t know Sammy,” Bucky replied swallowing. “I thought they might have tried to bargain or something. They’re quiet because they’re planning something.”

“I hate to say it,” Steve started, looking up from his book.

“Then don’t.”

“But I think Bucky might be right.”

“Thank you!”

“Whatever. You can keep an eye on them if it makes you feel better, but you’ve got other stuff to be focusing on too, Bucky. Be as paranoid as you want as long as it doesn’t keep you from writing articles.” He slapped Bucky’s hand which was steadily inching towards Sam’s fries. “Man, if you wanted some damn curly fries you should have bought some.”

“Yeah, but then I’d have too many curly fries. They really should do half curly, half regular.”

“Man, how do I put up with you?”

“I’m fucking delightful.”

Steve chucked, head shaking as he read the line in his book he wanted to type up onto the screen of his laptop. They sat on the high chairs quietly for a moment, eating in peace and looking out the window. The view was superb, the west side of campus was open up to the rolling hills and wide fields, and down below you could see the town itself and the ocean beyond. There were grey clouds rolling in from the Pacific, cut through by bright sunbeams slashing into the water and buildings below.

“That storm doesn’t look too good.” Sam said before sucking on the straw of his soda.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you the First Rain Run is tonight.” Bucky replied. He shot his hand out and grabbed one of Sam’s curly fries, bringing it to his mouth before Sam could react. The man gave Bucky an exasperated look, before shaking his head and looking back out the window.

“Are you guys going to do it this year?” Steve asked.

“No,” said Bucky. “That’s a young man’s game. My old bones can’t handle the wet and the cold no more. Naked runs might sadly be a thing of the past.”

“Besides, I don’t want to be on campus that late.”

“Well, I’ll let you know if it happens. They run right by the quad my window faces.”

“Well, who knows. Maybe Thor will run it?” Steve tried to glare at Bucky, but was blushing too hard to pull it off. Bucky leaned in, face lewd and mischievous. “Maybe you can think of something else you guys could do naked?”

“Bucky, good grief, have some decency, man.” Sam said.

“Just giving something for Steve to think about tonight.”

Steve sputtered a little, before looking back towards his notes. “He’s not going to run, if you’re too old than he definitely is.”

“How old is can he be? I mean, I’m 22, and I feel ancient.”

“He’s 26. I found out at your party.”

“Is that a problem for you, Steve?” Sam asked, peering at him above his sunglasses, still sucking on his drink. Bucky turned and looked at him as well, and Steve glanced up from his notes to see not his friends, but two concerned parents sitting on the other side of the table worried about their baby’s crush. “You’re 21. Five years is not that big a jump, is it?”

“I’m really not talking about this right now,” Steve said.

“Are you sure, son?”

“Okay, not your son. And not talking about it.”

“Are you worried he won’t like you because you’re too young?”

“I’m trying to study.”

“Or is it—“

“La la la lalalalalblahablah not listening.” Steve put his fingers in his ears and looked back down at his Physio book, reading the same line over and over again. He suddenly shot his head up: “And this isn’t a ‘liking’ thing. We’re friends. I just didn’t know how old he was and was surprised when I found out.”

“But you like him?”

“As a friend,” Steve insisted. Bucky and Sam threw their hands up in the air with a shout, and Sam threw a napkin at Steve.

“Fucking hell, Steve You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“Bullshit, man. That’s bullshit. You were totally crying about his nipples. That’s not what friends do.”

“I—“

“Like Thor!” Bucky and Sam said together.

“—refuse to get into this!”

“Fine, but you will owe us so hard and so much when you figure it out yourself.”

“Whatever. You two are nuts.” Steve went back to his book, but could not really bring himself to concentrate. He finally closed the book, and put it back in his bag, slumping slightly in the chair, and eating the last of his fries. Bucky pushed his plate over to Steve, nudging his hand with it until Steve took a fry and ate it.

“You need to eat more, man,” Bucky said. “You keep trying to go through the whole day on a bagel. No wonder your stressed. You’re self-cannibalizing.”

“That’s mot a real world. I’ve just got to spread my Sealbux throughout the whole quarter. I only get $40 worth with my meal plan.”

“I’m buying milkshakes,” Sam said, standing up. “Not taking no for an answer.”

“There’s something off about telling me to eat more, than getting me the most unhealthy thing on the menu.”

“Milkshakes are healthy. They’re good for your soul.” He pointed at Bucky. “What flavor?”

“Strawberry.”

“Ew.” He pointed at Steve. “What flavor?”

“Whichever’s cheapest.”

“Oreo Mega Blast, then.”

“I don’t—“ But Sam had walked back up to the counter, and was already flirting with the lady who stood at the cash register.

“Don’t trip. That’s why his ass is so big,” Bucky said. Steve snorted. “I think he’s just feeling some pressure a little more as Editor in Chief. There’s not much going on now that we’ve done the budget cut thing. He’s stress-eating or something. He’s baking a lot too. We need more roommates to eat all this crap.”

“Are you worried?”

“A little, that’s all. He’ll be fine.” Steve looked at Bucky, who actually looked more that ‘a little ‘concerned as he studied Sam at the counter across the room. “Yeah, he’ll be fine.”

Sam came back with the milkshakes cutting off Bucky, who pretended to rifle through his bag to end their short conversation. Sam handed out the shakes, giving an especially large one to Steve and tossing some straws on the table, heaving himself up onto the high chair once more with a sigh.

“Did you do the reading Professor Hill assigned yet?” He asked Bucky.

 

 

Steve walked back to Guass House as dusk fell, pulling the collar of his jacket up and tucking his hands in his pockets to stave off the cold. The dark clouds that had gathered over the ocean had made their way above the campus, ominous and menacing. Steve smiled as he looked up at the November sky. It was beautiful in its own way; steely grey and patched with flecks of white light from the hidden sun above. Steve made it up the hill and jogged slowly to the door of the building pulling out his keys.

He looked up to see Thor in just a dark v-neck t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, standing under the entry way of the building, leaning up against the wall looking up at the sky above the mini-quad wearing a soft smile.

“Hey, lock yourself out?” He asked as he made it to Thor.

“Nah, I was just taking a look outside. I’ve got to study with Nat, and wanted some fresh air before going in her dorm.”

“It does look cool, doesn’t it?” Steve said, moving to stand next to Thor.

“It really does,” Thor replied. They stood next to each other a moment, hands in their pockets, looking up at the churning sky above. Thunder sounded from far away, and Thor and Steve looked at each other and grinned, before turning their heads in tandem back up to the thickening clouds. First slowly, then with gathering haste, drops of rain began to fall on the pavement in front of them, darkening the ground, and making the air thick with cool moisture.

They stood in comfortable silence, watching the rain patter against the bricks. Steve shivered a little and Thor turned towards him, “You cold?” Steve nodded. “Give me your hands.”

Steve offered up his hands from his pockets. He did not think about it until his skin touched Thor’s and he realized how intimate this actually was. Thor enveloped them in his own large hands, rubbing over Steve’s cool skin.

“Loki and I would do this when we were in Iceland.”

Thor brought Steve’s hands towards his mouth, and Steve watched, transfixed as Thor opened his lips and blew a warm burst of air onto Steve’s fingers. The sensation shot through Steve’s hands and straight to his spine. The chill was forgotten, but probably not for the reasons Thor thought.

They stood together for a moment; Steve’s hands in Thor’s, growing warmer. Steve did not want to ever leave. He looked up at Thor, meeting the ice-blue eyes and feeling his mouth go dry at the sight of them. Thor smiled and Steve smiled back, hands warm in Thor’s, heart beginning to thud dangerously fast against his ribcage. He felt suddenly brave, and felt himself leaning forward—

“Whoohoo! First rain!”

Thor and Steve suddenly both turned looking towards the low din of hundreds of students cheering in the storm across campus. Steve sighed, knowing what was happening in an instant, hating everything and everyone.

“What is that?” Thor asked.

“First Rain.” Thor looked at him quizzically. “Each year when it rains for the first time students will strip naked and run through the campus. It’s a… tradition.”

“Ah. Will they run through here?”

“Yeah. It’s not pretty.”

Thor let out a small huff of breath, which blew against Steve’s forehead, reminding him how close they were. “I should probably go study,” Thor said finally.

“Yeah, I should too.”

They stood together for a moment longer, still holding hands. Steve was not sure who let go first. But with a sigh, their hands had gone from held together in between them to down at their sides. They stood facing each other under the entryway of the building.

The door clanged open, and they both jumped as Bruce stepped out zipping up a rain jacket. “Hey guys, you going in?”

“Yeah… yeah.”

Steve and Thor turned and walked in and Bruce closed the door behind them. They headed up the stairs in silence, save for the echoes of the footfalls against the walls. Thor stopped at the second floor.

“I’m going to Nat’s. I’ll see ya later, man.”

Steve stopped and watched him slowly back up into the hallway before turning around and heading down to Nat’s room, rubbing the back of his neck as he left. Steve stopped for a moment at the junction of the stairs and hall. He felt like running and grabbing Thor, shoving him against the wall and, and— _and do what?_ He did not really know. There was just something, a pull at his core, that wanted desperately to follow Thor. But then he heard Thor knock on Nat’s door, and the sound of several people inside chatting and welcoming him in, and knew it was too late. With a sigh he trudged up the stairs and down the hall to his room. He looked out the window and saw the parade of naked students running by chanting and pulled the curtains closed, flopping down on his chair.

He picked up his phone and called Sam. The line rang once, twice, three times—

“This is Sam’s phone,” answered Bucky. “Sam cannot come to the phone right now, he’s baking a pie. How may I direct your call?”

“It’s Steve.”

“Oh hey. Let me put you on speaker phone.”

“Sure.” Steve heard Bucky fumble with the phone, and the thud of it being placed on the kitchen counter.

“Steve! What’s up man?”

“Um, well… You were right.”

“Well I know that, but about what?” said Sam. Steve could hear him stirring something vigorously in the background.

“He clearly was talking about me, since I’m always right,” Bucky said.

“What are you talking about, Steve?”

“I think I might like Thor.”

“Ohh. But as a friend though?” Sam said, though Steve could hear the grin in his voice.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, heart still thudding, laying his head down on his desk. “Nope.”

“So you like-like him?”

“Oooh! Told you.” Bucky sounded delighted on the other end, and the distinct sound of him and Sam high-fiving made Steve roll his eyes.

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “I like-like Thor.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read? Try aisle 5.)
> 
> (Oh, you guys really didn't think I'd let them kiss did you? You've got like, a thousand more chapters and at least one explosion before that happens. Sorry, I don't make the rules. Except I do. Either way, you're gonna have to wait).


	18. When the Damages Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve meets with his faculty advisor now that all the budget cut stuff is over (but is it really?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • I'd been meaning to introduce Professor Erskine a lot earlier. Whoops.  
> • There's a lot of 'plot' and not a lot of relationshit going on, but I think at this moment, things will settled down and start down the path of unrequited pining, and it'll be great (note, Thor's chapters aren't caught up with Steve's yet in this series, so he has some more 'plot' to do too, but it'll all work out in the end).

“Professor Erskine?” Steve knocked on the open door to the small corner office in the Biology department building, peaking his head in with a soft smile.

“Ah, Mr. Rogers. Come in, come in,” Erskine replied. Steve had a brief flash of linguistics, noticing the Professor’s accent for the first time since he had to read an article about inflection, accents and dialects for his general education class. It was maddening. That was a space in his head that could have been used for Pre-Med information. “I am just finishing up this email. Sit down, please.”

Steve sat, silently cursing linguistics. Not with any real vehemence, but just on principle, as Professor Erskine typed up the last few words, and sent the email off with a whooshing sound from his computer.

“How can I help you today, Mr. Rogers?”

“I just wanted to make sure that things were still on track for my exit exams next semester. I know things were a little crazy with the budget cut threat.”

“Yes that was quite a nasty shock.”

“Yeah, it was pretty nuts when we heard about it.”

“Oh yes! You’re the comic artist! I always forget. Look here!” Professor Erskine gestured to the bulletin board behind his desk, and Steve saw his comic, cut out and pinned there underneath a picture of Erskine and his wife. Steve smiled. “I really liked it,” Erskine continued. “I figured I’d save it. Just to remind us what could have been.”

“Thank god it’s not though. That the budget cuts were stopped.”

“Yes. Though, I worry. Ah, not important. Let me find your student file,” he bent down and started digging through his desk drawer.

“You worry? About what?”

Erskine gave Steve a piercing look over the edge of his desk, and then glanced over at his door. “Would you shut the door?” he asked casually. “I just remembered the exit exam discussions are supposed to be confidential. Silly rule.”

Steve got up and shut the door. The exit exams were not supposed to be confidential. He knew everything there was to know about the exit exams and had since his second quarter of his Freshman year. What’s more, Professor Erskine knew that he knew there was no such rule. He leaned back against the door for a moment, and Professor Erskine shut off his computer, gesturing at Steve to sit back down in his chair.

“I could just be paranoid, but… well, better safe than sorry.”

“Professor?”

“You know Professor Schmidt? Johan Schmidt?”

“The director of the STEM programs? I’ve seen him, but I don’t know him that well.”

“Yes. I am not certain, but I feel the budget cut news has put some ideas in his head. He’s always been chummy with Provost Pierce too.”

“Ideas?”

“He’s always been eccentric though. And UCM’s program is unique. We’re one of the few campuses to offer experiment lab-work to undergrads. I feel… our last meeting, right after the Provost retracted the budget cut proposal, he said some things. They did not sit well with me.”

“What kind of things.”

“Nothing concrete. Allusions to experiments that would bring in more money to the department I think. Less emphasis on the educational programs themselves. As a professor that teaches, and has my own practice, rather than conducting experiments for drugs to sell to pharmacies, this is concerning.”

“What exactly are you worried about? Not your job, you’re world-renowned.”

“I’m worried about the entire school, Steve. The setting of a dangerous precedent. Schmidt and Pierce together could do terrible things, I think. All in the name of money. You saw the budget cut proposal; they could raze the school to the ground. They planned on making all of our departments experiment and research. Forget educating students.”

Steve leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “But the budget cut proposal was stopped. That was the reason Sam Wilson and the rest of the Press Office risked expulsion, to stop it.”

Professor Erskine started whispering. “I worry you have only made them angrier. I think they will try again. I think they will try it again and smarter too. Quieter, smaller. Remember what I’ve taught in my infectious disease class?”

Steve shook his head.

“Sometimes you think something is over. You were sick, but now you can run, jump, play, study, but your body is still sick. That’s when the damage happens. Our University might still be sick.”

Steve exhaled a breath he did not realized he had been holding. He and Professor Erskine were quiet for a few moments. Outside the office, they could hear a group of students playing flag-football, laughing, and whooping without a care. He was envious. Just when he thought the only thing he would have to worry about was liking a Linguistics student and trying to pass Poetry and Language. He let out a soft curse. “I know the editor in chief of City in the Woods Press. Would you like to talk to him about this? Expose it?”

“There is nothing to expose. Not yet. I don’t know.” He waved his hands, looking frazzled. “I am merely speculating. The budget cut announcement threw us all off our kilters, you know.”

“I guess.”

“I should just be quiet. Don’t you worry on it.”

“Professor, this sounds important. I don’t think you would have told me if you didn’t think it mattered.”

“You’re a student. I should not tell you anything at all except where to turn in your homework.”

Steve sat back in the chair, realizing that he would not get much more out of Professor Erskine. The grey-haired man looked at Steve pointedly until Steve sighed and asked, “So, about my exit exams and thesis stuff?”

 

They chatted for a little while, and just as they were about to finish there was a knock on the door. Both Steve and Professor Erskine stopped and stared at the door for a moment, their earlier conversation not entirely forgotten. But then Professor Erskine threw up his hands, and gestured vaguely to the calendar on the wall behind him.

“I have an appointment! Of course, sorry,” he said quietly. He stood up and Steve stood up as well and they walked to the door. Then a little louder than necessary he said, “Well, Steve, just email me if you have any more questions. You know my office hours, yes?” He pulled open the door. “Remember, Exit Exams are confidential, hmm?”

Steve nodded, not missing Professor Erskine’s small nod, and with a deep breath he turned around and—

THUMP. Walked directly into a tall, broad, blond man.

“Steve! Watch where you’re going! Mr. Odinson, yes! Come in, come in.” Professor Erskine 

“Thor, hi.” Steve felt his traitorous face flush as he looked at the man in front of him.

“Steve, hey.” Thor replied.

They smiled at each other. Thor looked better than he had a few weeks ago, but a few weeks ago, Steve had not wanted to admit he had a crush on the taller man. So now Thor looked every bit the Norse god he was named after — no, Steve did _not_ look that up after realizing he liked the guy, of course not, who would look up the meaning of someone’s name? — Now that Thor was standing here, all tall, broad and blond, and Steve felt even more flustered than he had when he ran into Thor without his shirt the first week of school.

Neither of them spoke.

“Do you two know each other?” Dr. Erskine asked, breaking the awkward silence.

“Yeah, yeah, Thor lives on my floor in Guass House. I’m his RA.” Steve said finally as Thor took a minute step back, running his hand over his face with a small laugh.

“Oh good. Well, come in Mr. Odinson, let’s get cracking, yes? Steve, see you in a few days hmm? Look at those books I told you about.”

“Yes sir. Will do.” He took a deep breath, trying to look like he was not taking a deep breath. “Well, see ya, Thor.”

“Yeah, see ya Steve.”

Steve and Thor held eye contact for a moment more, before Professor Erskine closed the door behind Thor. Their muffled voices sounded through the walls, but Steve could not make out what they were saying. Steve stood in the hall before remembering that he actually needed to start working on homework for his Physio class, and his Poetry and Language class.

He headed back to Guass, silently cursing himself for freezing up when he saw Thor — _“I’m his RA.” I’m a jerk, is what I am._ — and pulling his coat up against the crisp November breeze, and walking by the group of kids playing football. He felt stupid. And he remembered hearing Loki talk about going to Professor Erskine for help with whatever was wrong with Thor. What if that made Thor uncomfortable, that he was so close with Professor Erskine? He would just as soon find another faculty advisor if it meant Thor got the help he needed.

He also thought on what Professor Erskine said about Professor Schmidt. Bucky had said he did not think things were over with the budget cuts, maybe this sort of thing is what he meant. He vacillated between Professor Erskine’s insistence on secrecy, and what could potentially be at stake. He had already gone through the gut-dropping agony of thinking he would not be able to graduate, what if it happened again? More importantly, what if it happened to other students? No one deserved that.

 

He found himself at the top of the stairs in Guass. Instead of walking over to room 302, pulling out his keys and starting his homework, instead he went all the way down the hall, and knocked on the door to room 305.

“Hey Steve, what’s up?” Bruce asked as he opened the door. “We’re not studying tonight are we?”

“No, it’s not that. Is Tony in?”

Bruce studied Steve for a moment before pulling open the door. Steve noticed he glanced out into the hallway before closing the door. Steve walked over and tapped Tony on the shoulder. It looked like he was trying to weld something with a tiny kitchen blowtorch, and had a large pair of headphones on. As Tony pulled them down around his neck, Steve could hear loud rock music blaring through them.

“You gonna write me up? This is a kitchen tool that does not have a hot plate. That is allowed in the rooms, I checked.”

“No, I’m not here to write you up.”

“What’s the matter with you, you look positively grim, my dear.”

“Yeah man,” Clint said jumping down from his perch on top of the dressers. “You okay?”

“I’m— I’m fine, just fine. I just—“ he sighed and looked around the room, noting of all the violations against the housing code that finding he did not really care right now. “I was just wondering something.”

“Were you now? What were you wondering, Stevieboy?” Tony asked. Steve finally looked at Tony, meeting the man’s gaze.

“Are you still able to access information on the school servers? Like, emails and stuff? I think there’s something going on in the STEM departments.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta read? It's like you don't even know who I am anymore!)
> 
> (I really shouldn't be writing any fic, but I'm having a mini breakdown about my real life projects and writers' conferences and all sorts of IRL malarky, so stress relief fic chapters are happening. Whoops).


	19. Cold and Courage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is taking a shower when the fire alarm goes off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • NOTE BENE: this shows Steve having a panic attack, in case that is not your jam.  
> • I'm working on a different fic where Avengers!Steve has a panic attack, and this just kind of bled over from that.  
> • I kind of just like torturing Steve... whoops.

Steve passed by Thor in the hallway the next night, shower caddy in hand. Thor was heading back to room 301, hair wet, holding his leather kit and bundled up in a sweatshirt and pajama pants. The November air had chilled Gauss house, leaving it drafty and cold; nearly every room had a space heater running at night. 

“Man, looks like I just missed you,” Steve said, trying to sound nonchalant, desperately hiding his disappointment. “I’ve been itching for another shower singing session.”

“Bummer, man,” Thor replied. “Hit me up tomorrow if you want. We can shower together.” Thor’s face scrunched up as he said the word. “That came out wrong… I meant—”

“Yeah, no worries. I got it.” Steve prayed futilely that his cheeks weren’t turning bright red as he thought about showering _with_ Thor.

“Sorry.” Thor laughed, but it did not sound very happy, and he fumbled to get his keys.

“But yeah, tomorrow.” Steve tried desperately, grasping at courage he was not sure he possessed. _What was he doing?_ “Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. Just knock when you wanna go.”

Thor smiled and it reached his eyes that time and Steve felt a thrill of adrenaline and endorphins at the sight of it. Steve was even able to keep his head about him enough to not say something stupid like _“It’s a date,_ ” because that was exactly what he was about to say before he stopped himself. He smiled back and waved as he walked by and headed to the bathroom, bouncing down the few steps and over to the shower stalls, his shower sandals flopping loudly, sound echoing on the tiles, grinning. He bit back a laugh, and could not say where it was coming from.

The showers were blessedly empty, but Steve peaked around the bathroom just in case. Then he poked his nose into each of the three shower stalls until he found the one that looked like it had been used most recently, and stepped in.

 _Thor was in this shower stall,_ Steve thought to himself. Then he took a step back at the revelation. _Oh my god, I’m a freaky stalker._

That did not stop him from hanging up his shower caddy and pulling the curtain closed and stepping in. He turned on the water and actually had a fairly normal shower, except for the few times he remembered how utterly ridiculous he was, thinking about standing naked where Thor was standing naked mere moments ago and snorted.

Then the fire alarm went off.

Steve swore and grabbed his towel but slipped and dropped into the still spraying water. He turned off the faucet. He cursed and pulled out his boxer briefs and clambered into them, getting them wet, forgoing the rest of his clothes, and darted out of the bathroom into the hall as people started to poke out of their rooms.

“Guys, we have to evacuate the building. Go down to the field by the mini-quad and we’ll do a headcount.” Steve said, trying to muster up some authority as he stood dripping wet in the hallway. He thought of going back and grabbing the rest of his clothes, but one of the freshman was suddenly crying, and Steve sighed and walked her down to the stairway, and peaked around to make sure all the rooms were clear before heading down himself.

He should have grabbed his clothes. As the door out of the building opened a great gust of icy cold, November air on his wet skin. He gasped loudly, and almost ran back into the building when a fire truck pulled up, and Nat started talking to one of the men who climbed out.

He heard Tony whistle, “Looking good, Stevie!” but thankfully Pepper punched him in the shoulder so Steve did not have to. Steve gritted his teeth and walked over to Nat and the firemen, breath puffing in front of him.

 

It was freezing. He held his hands in front of his face, breathing on his fingers and trying desperately to concentrate on what the fireman was saying. Steve couldn’t think straight it was so cold. The last time he had been this cold was when he was a kid _— ice fishing in Canada with some of his mom’s friends_.

He shook the memory out of his head as Nat and one of the fireman talked. They were going to do a sweep through the building and see what caused the alarm to go off. There was no smoke or obvious flame, so it was probably set off by some kid making popcorn. Steve sighed, the cold air chilling his lungs. The fireman handed Steve something to sign, but he couldn’t get a grip on the pen. _He couldn’t get a grip on the fishing pole._

“You okay?” Nat asked.

“Y-y-yeah.” He did not realize he was shivering. _“Canada is always cold,” his mom had said._

Suddenly Thor was there, “You alright, Steve?”

“Y-e-ah. F-f-ine.”

_He had fallen into the water through the ice. He remembered hearing his mom’s friends screaming from far away through the thick, icy water. He remembered the cold stabbing through his skin._

“Steve, you gotta slow down your breathing,” Nat said. That sounded far away too.

“Christ, his lips are blue,” said someone else.

“Steve? Steve?”

He couldn’t breathe. He kept opening his mouth and all he felt was cold water filling his lungs. He was doubling over staring at the grass at his sandaled feet, not able to think clearly and focus on anything, feeling suddenly nauseous.It was like there was a vice grip on his chest, and the dark night air kept squeezing tighter and tighter around him, prickling his skin. He could not breathe, he could not swallow, he could not breathe, he could not stop shaking.

Suddenly something warm was thrown over his chest, and he was being pulled back onto the ground. Steve flailed out as he fell, landing back against something hot and solid and warm.

“Fuck, his skin is like ice.” Hands ran up and down his arms. “Shh, Steve it’s alright. You’re alright. I got you.”

“Thor you got this okay?

“Something to put over his legs would be good.”

“What’s going on?”

“Steve’s freaking out.”

“Did he set the fire?”

“He’s not freaking out, I think he’s having a panic attack. I think the cold set it off.”

 _Panic attack_. Steve remembered the pre-med text he read about that. _Adrenaline, cortisol, stress, fear._ In a distant, far off way, that made sense, but having it make sense, and using the knowledge to calm himself down were two separate things. He still couldn’t breathe.

“Tony put your sweatshirt on his legs.”

“But Pep—”

“Just do it!”

Everyone was talking around him and above him, but Steve could not make sense of the words. He felt like he was still drowning in the ice waters on the lake as a kid. The only thing different this time were the warm hands running steadily up and down his arms.

“I got you. It’s alright,” a deep, warm voice whispered next to his ear. “I got you, it’s fine. We’ll go inside soon. We’ll warm up soon.” It could have been just minutes, it could have been hours. The voice kept speaking in his ear, and slowly Steve’s breathing grew even. He became aware of the gaggle of legs around him, and looked up to see the faces of pretty much everyone in from his building staring up at him. Even some of the firemen were gathered around, peering curiously down at him.

He was still freezing cold, but the warm body at his back and the warm hands at his arms were grounding.

“Hey there, Steve.” Nat was kneeling down in front of him. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” She rolled her eyes. “Thank god Thor knew what to do, huh?”

“Thor?”

“Right here, man,” said the voice behind him. “Feeling alright?”

Steve tensed and jumped to his feet. _Holy shit, holy shit._ Everyone around him backed up, but he was still left in a circle of people with Nat and Thor. “Shit, I’m sorry. Shit.”

“It’s alright,” Thor said, standing up. He held his hands up placatingly, and Steve tried to steady his breathing. “I think you’re still keyed up, okay. You didn’t anything wrong.”

Steve wanted to laugh. He had his first panic attack and ended up pressed flush against the guy he had a crush on, practically sitting in his lap hyperventilating. He was mortified.

“Here, put the sweatshirt on and we can go back inside and calm down, okay?” Steve realized he was clutching a sweatshirt — _Thor’s sweatshirt_ — to his chest, but other than that was still very much only in his underwear. A fierce wind blew threw the mini-quad and Steve acquiesced and pulled the sweatshirt on over his bare chest. At his periphery, he saw Nat talking with a fireman, and then start guiding students back into the building.

Steve and Thor stayed staring at each other, unwavering as the others filed away around them. Finally Thor asked, “You doing a little better?”

“I’m fine.” Steve lied. He could feel his face flushed red hot as he tried to process what just happened. The humiliation alone of having a panic attack was enough to make him feel like dying, but that Thor saw it all? He could barely look the taller man in the eye. He couldn’t even imagine what Thor was thinking about him; stupid punk kid who ran out in the middle of the night wet from his shower in November? What an idiot. 

But to his surprise, Thor rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure. I’ll believe that. Come on, let’s get you warm. God save me from stubborn ass boys.” He stepped forward and slung an arm over Steve’s shoulder. “You’re as bad as Loki.”

Steve sighed, leaning minutely into the warm embrace. Being compared to Thor’s younger brother was not something Steve really wanted. He was sure his face was painfully red. He wanted to die a little bit. Just praying that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow him right here.

They walked up the stairs, but all the while Thor didn’t let go of Steve, probably anticipating Steve wanting to run away and never come back to the dormitory again. They made it up the steps, and he guided Steve through the hall, steady enough so Steve didn’t have to look at the others peering out of their doors to stare at him as they passed. Peggy and Pepper waved and Thor waved back.

Steve tried to pull away at room 302, but realized he did not have his keys. They were still in the bathroom in the shower caddy. Thor was fishing through his pockets, and pulled out his own keys, and all but pushed Steve into room 301. Steve sat down on the bed at Thor’s nod, and Thor rummaged through his dresser. Steve realized that he suddenly felt very tired.

“Crashing?” Thor asked. “That happens sometimes after…”

Steve nodded. Thor’s bed was just as awkward, and dorm-room uncomfortable as his own, but right now it felt very inviting. “How do you know so much about panic attacks?”

“My mother died and we found out Loki was adopted within 24 hours of each other. It left us both a little fucked up. Panic attacks were the least of our problems.”

Steve gaped at Thor. “Jesus, Thor. I had no idea. I’m—“

“Shit, I shouldn’t’ve said that,” Thor looked chagrined. “I guess I’m a little keyed up too, my filter’s off.”

“Why would you be keyed up?” _Were you keyed up because of me?_

“Here,” Thor said, handing Steve a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that said “The UCM Cunning Linguists” with a picture of Ellie the Elephant Seal in a recording booth.

“Thor?”

“Do you want some socks?” Steve stared at him for a moment longer before nodding, realizing Thor would not answer his question. “You can chill here for as long as you need. Being alone after a panic attack sucks.”

“I’m really fine, I can leave if you want.” Steve tried. He was sinking a little into Thor’s bed though, holding the clean sweatpants, shirt and socks on his lap.

“I really don’t mind you staying here.”

“I might just fall asleep if you’re not careful.” Steve was very tired.

“Just leave enough room for me to get in later, and we’ll be fine.”

Steve stared. If you had asked him if he thought he would be sleeping in the same bed as Thor this morning he would have laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Now he and Thor stared at each other, neither one taking the eyes away from the other. For all his twenty-one years, Steve had never felt more sexually charged in his life. He slowly nodded. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Me neither,” Thor replied after a long pause. Their eyes stayed locked for a little while longer before Thor finally pulled away. “I just need to finish this essay. Get some rest. Put on the sweats, you need to warm up.”

“Yeah, yeah okay.”

Steve pulled the sweatpants on over his briefs, and pulled off Thor’s sweatshirt to put on the t-shirt. He stared at the wall in front of him as he pulled on the t-shirt, terrified to see if Thor was looking at him shirtless or not. _Why, Steve? It didn’t matter when you were having a panic attack on the lawn earlier?_ Steve tried not to huff at how absurd his brain was being. He quickly pulled the sweatshirt back on again, silently delighted at how warm it was, and finally able to appreciate that it smelled like Thor. He pulled on the socks and fell back down onto the bed, exhaustion taking over. He pulled up the covers and rolled over onto his side facing the wall and fell into a dazed half-sleep, listening to Thor typing at his laptop.

Time passed, and the lights flicked off. The bed dipped as Thor gingerly slipped in, and Steve lifted the covers for him. Thor was laying on his side, but still kept a few inches of distance apart from Steve’s back.

A small voice in Steve’s mind whispered to him. He thought of all the work he had to do as the semester started coming to its end, and he thought of what Professor Erskine had said about Schmidtt and the STEM departments, and he thought about coming up with new comics for the newspaper. And he thought, _this may never happen in your life again. What really matters? Fuck it. Just do it._

So Steve, in an act of incredible bravery, slipped back the few inches, closing the gap between him and Thor. He pressed his back into the warm solid mass of Thor’s chest, and for a moment they both tensed. Steve was about to jump up, apologizing for being so brash, and bolt out of the room when Thor, with a sigh, relaxed against Steve, and wrapped his arm around Steve’s waist. Steve let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding and relaxed back into Thor.

If anyone asked, he would say it was because he was cold.

And Thor was very warm.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Beta Read? I was too busy freaking out over AOU)
> 
> Oh my gosh, it's been like five billion years since I've updated this, or its counter-part story with Thor's POV, and I'm SUPER SORRY. Life is wearing down on me, and I've been very busy. And I don't even know if I'll get back in the swing of things from here either... this chapter may just be a one-off that I needed to get out of my system, but I'm hoping that I'll get more of this story done! For all of your sakes, my lovely readers. Hopefully this chapter, (particularly its very nice ending!) helps a little bit.


	20. Cloves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning goes terribly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • A Steve update! Holy cow, it's been months!  
> • Steve just can't catch a break. I'm sorry. It's a theme in literally every story I write; Steve has a bad, bad time.  
> • I wrote this and the corresponding Thor POV chapter in the same day (today, in fact! I churned them both out in a few hours, I'm very proud of the sudden productivity). As such, they are very, very parallel in both structure and content. This won't happen often, but I think it turned out really cool.

Steve woke up warm, muscles aching, eyes bleary. He felt tired, which was a very disconcerting feeling to have upon waking up. He was exhausted still, but at least very comfortable. For a moment, nothing mattered. All he wanted was to go back to sleep in his stupendously warm bed. A thick, warm arm shifted on his hip, a hand was splayed out on his stomach, fingers ghosting on his skin under his rucked up shirt, holding him close. If felt safe. It felt like heaven. He let out a soft sigh and sank into the warm body behind him. Even the bed smelled good and warm. There was detergent and cloves. It pulled Steve back to Christmas with his mom as a child where she would stick cloves into mandarin oranges and set them around the house. Spicy and complex, special. Steve liked it. What’s more was that maybe it smelled a little like the stuff Thor used in his hair — not that Steve had noticed, that would be weird. He liked his bed smelling like this though. Detergent, cloves, Thor. He could get used to this.

Steve opened his eyes. This was not his bed. There was an arm wrapped around his waist. A mature person would calmly asses the situation, Steve supposed in a far off way. They would calmly sit up, calmly and gently wake up the tall, broad, blond man glued to their back smelling like cloves, and would calmly make his way out of this wonderful bed and back to his own.

Steve was not mature. He liked to think he was, but he really wasn’t. A mature person would not react the way Steve did. Again, they would be calm, gentle, normal.

Steve jerked up on the bed screaming and scrambling out of Thor’s arms, crashing head first into the wall so hard he dented the plaster.

Thor woke up with a sharp yell, rolling away and tumbling off the bed, head connecting loudly with the nightstand as he fell.

“Fuck, ow fuck,” Steve said clutching his forehead.

Thor groaned on the floor holding the back of his head; “Jesus.”

Steve glanced around the room, Thor’s room, and started trying to slide off the bed, getting tangled in the sheets. “I’m sorry, fuck. I’m so sorry.”

“Are you alright?” Thor was blinking against the light of the morning, still holding the back of his head and curling in on himself. And he had the gumption to ask Steve if _he_ was alright. Steve could have laughed if he was not drowning in mortification.

He had slept in Thor’s bed. He had been spooning Thor. What in god’s name was wrong with him? He stared in horror as Thor sat up on the floor. A thousand excuses ran through his head. What was he possibly thinking? _I was cold, it was the panic attack I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight, it was very cold, I’m possibly certifiably insane._  

Instead, what came out of his mouth was, “Shit. I should go.”

He had to get out. He tumbled from the bed, pulling the sheets down before finally untangling himself and all but jumping over Thor to get to the door. He was already in the hallway, realizing his key was still in the bathroom when Thor fell out of the room after him.

“Steve, slow down, it’s alright,” Thor called out.

“I’m fine, I just—“

“Here,” Thor said softly, holding out his keys. The fact that Thor’s key worked in Steve’s door was a miracle; a blessing from some absentminded college-dorm locksmith years ago. He opened his door and spared one last look at Thor, tossing the key back to him.

“Thanks,” Steve mumbled. He did not know what else to say.

“Listen, I’ve been there. You’re still freaked out from last night.” Steve almost laughed because that was not what was happening at all. “Maybe this was a good thing.”

“Wait. What?” Steve stared at Thor.

“Well, you work too hard, Steve.” Thor had a strange look on his face. “You had a panic attack. That’s your brain saying you need to stop for a little bit and take care of yourself.”

Thor was quiet, but still the words felt incredibly loud in the weekend-quiet hall. Already Steve could see the girls poking their heads out of their room, and Tony and Bruce doing likewise from room.

“I don’t work too hard.”

“You do. You’re running yourself ragged.”

“Excuse me?” He felt something rising in his chest. He felt it when he was a kid fighting off bullies, but this wasn’t the same. This was Thor. He thought Thor was different. He did not understand. “I’m not running myself ragged.”

“You are. Everyone says it. You know I’m right about this.”

“You’re not right about this.” His voice grew louder and now he could feel the others in Guass House staring at him. “I’m fine.”

“You had a panic attack!”

“Because it was cold!”

“That’s not enough! You’re a med student, you ought to know better!”

“Oh, and you’re the expert?”

“Obviously I get what’s going on with you better than you!”

“What the hell is your problem?!”

“Are you kidding me right now? I was just saying you had a wakeup call and now you’re jumping down my throat.”

Thor was right. Steve knew that but he could not stop himself. His feelings were mixing up in his brain like a blender; chopping up all his logic, reasoning and calm. He could still feel Thor’s arm wrapped around his waist, and he hated it. He hated it because he knew Thor didn’t feel the same way about Steve as Steve felt about him, and it left Steve feeling raw, like there was something antsy under his skin, and he felt so desperately frustrated. He shouldn’t have had a panic attack, he shouldn’t have slept in Thor’s bed, he shouldn’t have fallen in—

“Get off my case! It’s none of your business how hard I work at school.”

“I can’t just stand by while you—“

“I’m doing my fucking best, Thor! Not all of us are fucking one-percenters like you. I _have_ to work this hard! Don’t you get that?!”

“Where the fuck did that come from? I’m just saying—“

“To hell with what you’re saying!” Steve screamed. “Where do you get off—“

“Why are you acting so fucking stupid?!”

“Don’t fucking call me ‘stupid!”

Steve could feel the eyes of the other students on his back as he stood there screaming back and forth with Thor. They were both tearing into each other now, face to face, screaming. This was worse than his shouting match with Tony weeks before. At least he had been in the right then. Now was terrible. Steve knew he was wrong, but once he started he couldn’t stop. Thor screamed about Steve working too hard, and Steve screamed about Thor minding his business. The idea that Thor cared about him enough to be worried, but only as a friend was like a stab wound, and now Thor was just twisting the knife the way they shouted at each other. Thor was wrong, Steve was wrong. It was just screaming now; something released in Steve, in Thor where neither of them could stop. It felt like every emotion was ten times worse when he was with Thor, ten times stronger.

He felt so tired. He felt like he was about to start crying. He could feel it in the back of his throat, in the way his lip started quivering and _why the fuck couldn’t he stop screaming? God please don’t let him start crying, not now. What was wrong with him?_

“God fucking save me from pigheaded shits like you!” Thor screamed.

“At least I can get through a quarter without a fucking psychotic breakdown like you!”

Thor looked like Steve had slapped him in the face, and Steve felt like he might have for all his regret at the words leaving his mouth. He froze staring at Thor. He did want to cry then but was trapped in Thor’s gaze. How could something so awful come from his lips? It was like he had been another person. It was like he was trying to push the worst kind of reaction from Thor. Like he was doing everything in his power to get Thor to hit him, scream, slam him back against the wall because god knows he deserved it.

“Fuck you, man,” Thor said at last.

“Enough!”

A flash of red, and a small hand on his chest, and Steve finally realized that Nat was pushing him and Thor away from each other. They had been inches away from each other and Steve did not even realize it. Thor could have easily punched him out. He almost wish Thor had swung so he could just swing back, just so he could feel something other than whatever this was in his chest.

“Steve, your shit is in my room, go downstairs and wait by the door for me,” Nat ordered.

“But—“ She glared at him, harsh enough to stop whatever he was going to say next and he finally took a moment to catch his breath. She stared him down for a few moments and he finally huffed. “Fine.”

“Peggy, Pepper, can you take Thor down to the dining hall and get some breakfast,” he heard Nat ask as he stormed down the hall.

“I don’t think he’s that fucking hungry,” Tony sassed.

“Don’t take that fucking tone with her!” Steve shouted, just as Thor said, “Don’t talk to her that way what’s wrong with you!?”

“Steve, go.” Nat said firmly. “Thor, take the girls and just walk it off, okay?”

Steve met Thor’s eyes once more as they stood on opposite ends of the hall, and the two of them glared at each other before Steve finally scoffed and turned to walk down the stairs. He heard Nat talking to the rest of the hall as he left, voice drowned out by the maddeningly loud thrum of blood in his ears.

“Show’s over, go back to what you were doing.”

 

Steve stood outside of Nat’s dorm one floor down and leaned against the wall. His hands were shaking. He felt like he had been punched in the gut. He almost wished he had, that would have been easier to understand. It was hard to breathe. Nat showed up a moment later, fishing her keys out of her pocket and wordlessly opening her door and ushering him in. She gave him a small shove, sitting him down on her bed and walked over to her desk, going through her papers.

“Do I have to report this?”

“Nat, you can’t.” In general, there was a three-strike rule for students living in the dorms. Three incidents in a single quarter and they were out. But Steve wasn’t a student, he was an RA. One strike and he would lose his home and his job.

“Do I have to report this?” she asked again, enunciating every word. He could barely look her in the eye. His hands were still shaking. Her voice grew softer. “Sorry, Steve. Take a minute, cool down.” She tossed him a water bottle and he drank some of it but still did not feel much better.

“What was that?” she asked. “I thought you and Thor were friends.”

“I don’t know,” he said. The words felt wet in his throat. “Christ, it came outta fucking nowhere. And then we just started going at each other and I couldn’t stop—”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “Jesus Christ.”

“Is this because of last night?”

“He said the panic attack was because I work too hard.”

“Well you do work too hard.”

“I don’t work—“

“Steve.” He stopped himself, and she sighed and put her papers on the desk. “Can you just talk to me a minute? I need to know something like this won’t happen again.”

“It won’t. I promise.” He looked at his hands. They were still shaking, but maybe it was slowly going away. “I fucked up,” he whispered. “Oh my god, I really fucked up.”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“He’s gonna hate me.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Nat said, but Steve was not convinced. “I think you just need to take a break.”

“We had a break, remember? The whole school stopped because of the budget cuts.”

“That doesn’t count and you know it. You were more freaked out than the rest of us. You never gave yourself a chance to come back down from that, I don’t think. Thor might’ve been right.”

“The panic attack was because of the cold.”

“That might have been what set it off, but you gotta admit it’s not like you’re a paradigm of calm. You work very hard. And you’re this little bundle of extreme emotions that are all dying to get out but you keep tamped down.”

“Little bund— Nat, I’m 6’2.”

“You know what I mean. You should take care of yourself. If you were in your right mind I don’t think what just happened would’ve happened.”

“I can’t just stop. We’ve only got a few weeks left of the quarter. I have things here that need—”

“You can take the weekend,” she suggested. “Go stay with Bucky and Sam, maybe? I can watch things here.” He thought to argue, but it was actually a good idea. He envied Nat for her levelheadedness. She reached over to her dresser and handed him his phone, which was sitting on top of the pile of stuff he had left in the bathroom the night before. “Call them. You can spend longer at their place too, I won’t tell Fury.”

“Longer?”

“Might as well. Short week next week.”

“What?”

“It’s Thanksgiving next Thursday. No classes after Wednesday at noon.”

He checked the date on his phone, “When the hell did that happen?” He thought he had things under control, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Things move fast on the quarter system. The semester schools don’t know how lucky they are.”

“No kidding.”

She nodded at the phone and Steve sighed and called Bucky, asking to be picked up. It felt like running away, it _was_ running away. He gathered his stuff and Nat walked him back to his room, and leaned against his doorframe as he threw stuff into a dufflebag to bring to Sam and Bucky’s. Then further still, she walked him to the parking lot as they waited for the boys to come pick him up.

“You don’t have to escort me. I feel like a criminal.”

“I’m not. I’m keeping you company.”

“It’s really not necessary.”

“Steve, you’re my friend, and you’ve had a bad night and a bad morning. Let me see you off. It’s the least you can do.”

“Last night wasn’t so bad,” he murmured.

“You had a panic attack practically naked on the mini-quad in November.”

He thought back. He was still wearing Thor’s clothes and even now he thought he could smell the scent of cloves that hung on his sheets. He felt so stupid. Something really good had happened and he completely blew it. Why hadn’t he just let himself wake up and be happy? What was wrong with him? “Yeah, you’re right. Could’ve been better.”

She wrapped a hand around his waist, and he leaned into her a little, grateful for the contact.

“Thor doesn’t hate you,” she said softly as Bucky’s car pulled up the hill and headed towards them. “Sometimes we scream at the people we like. Humans are stupid that way.”

“Yeah.”

“See you after Thanksgiving then?”

“I’ll be around, all my stuff is here.”

“Okay, but no RA’ing. I can hold down the fort.”

He opened the door and was about to slide into Bucky’s car when he stopped, and looked back at her. “Would you tell him I’m sorry,” he asked. “If you see him, I mean.”

“Sure thing, Steve.”

He got into the car and closed his eyes as he shut the door behind him, leaning back against the headrest, collapsing into the seat. He felt Bucky’s eyes on him.

“Sorry about what, Steve?”

“I’ll tell you after I’ve had some coffee okay?”

“Alright.” Bucky started the engine and pulled out from the parking lot. “Nice sweatshirt, is that new?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (beta read? beta fish)
> 
> So I reached the point where my Steve and Thor POV stories are at the same point in their respective chapter-counts, so I'm going to start alternating updates between the two of them. It'll be fun! And today is great! Two chapters up at the same time! A rare (read; never to happen again) treat. *blows kisses*
> 
> Poor Steviepoo. I think he's having a worse time this quarter than he wants to believe. My baby, my poor dingus baby.
> 
> I'm Betsy. [tumblr](http://batraquomancy.tumblr.com) takes up a lot of my life, and man do I love oreos!


End file.
